Tokyo, 17 January 2008: A record number of deficit budgets among Japanese municipalities has led the government to relax controls on the issuing of rescue bonds, for only the third time in 60 years. Municipalities have informed the central government that the 2007/08 fiscal year is likely to see a massive drop in local tax revenues, prompting the Japanese parliament to issue emergency legislation aimed at permitting municipalities to issue bonds to cover their deficits. The bond issue is thought to affect around 80 councils, to the tune of Y180bn ($1.67bn). Opposition parties used the circumstances to criticise the Liberal Democratic Party-led administration of Yasuo Fukuda for sloppy accounting, which had allowed the local authorities to run up such large deficits. However the main Democratic Party of Japan said it accepted that any attempt to block the legislation would adversely affect localities throughout Japan, which include the seven major cities of Sendai, Chiba, Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe and Fukuoka.