Tokyo, Feb 27 (IANS/EFE): Japan's parliament has approved a supplemental budget of 13.1 trillion yen ($142.43 billion) designed to finance an economic stimulus package.

Despite the fact that the governing Liberal Democratic Party lacks a majority in the upper house, lawmakers approved the budget thanks to the votes of the LDP's coalition partner, the conservative Buddhist New Komeito party, and other groups on the right, the Kyodo news service said.

The main opposition Democratic Party voted against it.

The DP, which governed from 2009 to 2012, says that the stimulus package depends too much on large "and unnecessary" public works projects.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government hopes that this new extra budget will give a 2 percent push to Japan's GDP and create about 600,000 new jobs.

To finance the supplementary budget, the government is planning to issue new debt amounting to some 7.8 trillion yen ($85 billion).

That, however, has sparked concerns about a worsening of the Japanese public debt, which is already the largest in the developed world.