Fitch Ratings will examine Japan's budget for the next fiscal year to assess whether Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's growth-focused spending agenda can coexist with fiscal discipline. Jeremy Zook, senior director of Asia-Pacific sovereign ratings at Fitch, said the final budget's composition and its effect on the primary balance would help determine the administration's fiscal direction. Requests have reached a record partly because a new framework combines initial and supplementary spending, while Takaichi's expansionary stance has raised government borrowing costs. Fitch expects Japan's debt-to-GDP ratio to decline for five years as nominal growth and tax revenues strengthen, then stabilise. That outlook depends in part on Takaichi's investment programme for strategic industries, whose 17 priority areas Fitch is still assessing. Fitch reaffirmed Japan's A sovereign credit rating in January with a stable outlook, five notches below AAA and one notch below S&P's A+ and Moody's A1 ratings. Zook said the rating risks are balanced.