Govt to Grant up to ¥1 mil. Worth Points for Energy-efficient Housing

The Yomiuri Shimbun

16:28 JST, December 2, 2020

The government will likely grant points, equivalent to as much as 1 million yen, that can be exchanged for home appliances and other items as a reward for building energy-efficient houses or renovating homes to make them earthquake-resistant, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

In the new economic stimulus package that is scheduled to be compiled in December, the government plans to establish a new point system for housing and incorporate related expenses in its third supplementary budget for fiscal 2020, sources said.

According to the sources, the government is making arrangements to start accepting applications at an earlier stage after the third supplementary budget is passed at the regular Diet session next year. The government aims to pass the supplementary budget by the end of January.

To redress overconcentration in Tokyo, the government is also considering distributing bonus points to households that relocate to places outside major cities and families with children, according to the sources.

As part of economic measures in conjunction with the 2019 consumption tax hike, the government has granted purchasers of newly built homes up to 350,000 yen worth of points that can be exchanged for home appliances and other items.

The government, for this latest round of stimulus measures, plans to raise the upper limit in response to a significant downturn in the domestic economy because of the spread of the novel coronavirus.