
The central government will provide grants to 70 municipalities for measures to help their growing populations of foreign residents settle in the communities, officials said. The new system will cover language programs for non-Japanese children before they enroll in school, improved disaster-prevention measures for foreign residents, and expenses to help them live in rental accommodation. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications plans to revise its regulations later this month to start offering the special grants to cover the municipalities' expenses for fiscal 2006, the officials said... The central government has distributed special grants to local governments to deal with natural disasters, heavy snowfalls and other emergency needs. The ministry will revise its regulations on the special grants to include measures to deal with rapidly increasing populations of non-Japanese...more...
I like the way that dealing with an increasing numbers of FGs will be included in a budget category associated with natural disasters.