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Japan's FY2026 national budget (Cabinet-approved 26 December 2025, Diet enacted 7 April 2026, effective with the fiscal year on 1 April 2026) allocates JPY 150 billion to METI's "Next-Generation Aircraft Development Support Project" -- more than double the JPY 81 billion allocated the prior fiscal year. Global Trade Alert logs this as one of 23 METI programmes under the FY2026 budget supporting the "green transformation of the industrial sector," classifying it as a financial-grant intervention open to all firms, tagged across 39 GTA-coded sectors and 92 products (consistent with an aircraft supply-chain subsidy touching composites/plastics, textiles, metals, and electronics inputs rather than a single narrow product line).
The programme is funded through the Decarbonisation Growth-type Economic Structure Transition Promotion Subsidy -- i.e. proceeds from Japan's GX (Green Transformation) Transition Bonds -- and disbursed via a METI-designated implementing body (shikko dantai) rather than direct ministry grants, per METI's FY2025 solicitation notice for that implementing-body role (the FY2026 solicitation for the equivalent role had not been separately located in this session; the FY2025 notice establishes the subsidy's legal/administrative mechanism, which continues into FY2026 per the MOF and METI budget documents above).
This is administratively distinct from NEDO's older Green Innovation Fund "Development of Next-Generation Aircraft" project (project code P21030, adopted from November 2021, ~JPY 51.08 billion total subsidy ceiling across four R&D work items with Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, IHI/IHI Aerospace, Toray and others) -- the GI Fund project is a narrower, longer-running R&D/demonstration programme, while the FY2026 budget line audited here is the larger, year-by-year "development support" subsidy whose FY2026 tranche nearly doubled versus FY2025.
METI aerospace subsidy line signals an accelerating state push to rebuild Japan's aircraft-parts and materials manufacturing base -- consistent with the broader FY2026 METI budget pattern already filed (semiconductor equity investment, hydrogen, decarbonised power) of using GX Transition Bond proceeds to fund industrial-policy grants across strategic sectors.
metals -- 92 products) indicates the subsidy is structured to reach the full upstream materials supply chain feeding Japanese airframe and engine manufacturers, not just prime contractors.
commentary) of raising its participation share in international joint aircraft/engine development programmes and building MRO capacity -- both economic-security and industrial-competitiveness goals distinct from the decarbonisation R&D framing of the older GI Fund project.
the FY2025 one cited here) was not located in this session; meti.go.jp blocked automated retrieval of several candidate PDFs with HTTP 403 from this environment (a recurring access issue noted on other FY2026 METI actions filed the same day). Revisit if a FY2026-dated solicitation or the full "39 sectors / 92 products" GTA breakdown (paywalled) becomes accessible.
awardees was not confirmed -- the participating-company list above belongs to the separate, older NEDO Green Innovation Fund project, not this budget line.