The Japanese government has announced more than $100bn in new stimulus spending in a bid to rescue the world's second largest economy from its worst crisis since the second world war.
The figure amounts to more than two per cent of Japan's gross domestic product (GDP), Kaoru Yosano, the finance minister told reporters on Monday.
Taro Aso, the prime minister, last month announced plans for a new cash injection into the Japanese economy, but he did not say at the time how much it would be worth.
The latest package comes on top of other stimulus measures unveiled since October that were worth a combined $740bn, of which actual fiscal spending was about $118bn.
Japan's economy recorded its worst performance in almost 35 years in the last quarter of 2008, contracting at a rate of 12.1 per cent a year.
This is primarily attributed to the global economic downturn, which has caused Japanese exports to halve over the past year as demand for its cars and high-tech goods decline.
Major manufacturers have cut back on production and have axed tens of thousands of jobs since the crisis began.
Unemployment in Japan hit a three-year high of 4.4 per cent in February.
IMF demand
The new stimulus package is expected to include measures to assist laid-off workers, help companies secure access to credit, improve healthcare and to encourage greater use of solar energy technologies.
The latest cash injection follows a call by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for nations to lift stimulus spending to at least two per cent of GDP.
It also comes as business confidence in Japan fell to an all-time low, according to the country's central bank.
Results of the Bank of Japan's tankan survey of more than 10,000 large manufacturers released last week said confidence declined to minus 58 in the three months to March.
That was far worse than the minus 24 in the previous quarter and below the previous record of minus 57 in 1975.
The quarterly tankan survey is an index that measures the percentage of firms that think business conditions are good minus those that think they are unfavourable.