TOKYO: Japan’s Ministry of Finance will boost 2-year government bond issuance by 100 billion yen ($679.49 million) a month from January to March to fund an economic stimulus package, a government draft document reviewed by Reuters showed on Monday.

The ministry also planned to lift the issuance of 6-month Treasury discount bills, while the overall calendar-based annual bond sales to the market will increase to some 200 trillion yen, from the currently planned 198.6 trillion yen, the draft showed.

The enhanced bond issuance highlights the plight of the industrial world’s heaviest public debt burden at more than twice the size of Japan’s economy, the world’s third largest.

The increase in the amount of the market issuance will be smaller than new bond issuance worth 22.8 trillion yen to fund a stimulus package unveiled last month.

In an effort to prevent additional bond issuance from pressuring the bond market, the government curbed agency bond issues and front-loaded issuance of refunding bonds.

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The amount of annual issuance of the 2-year bonds will rise by 300 billion yen to 33.9 trillion yen for the current fiscal year ending next March.

The ministry judged that there’s room for the market to absorb the additional 2-year bond issues, which will increase by 100 billion yen to monthly issuance worth 2.9 trillion yen from January through March.

Other maturities of bond issuance will remain unchanged.