Japan–Qatar relations April 2006, an economic agreement was signed between Qatar and Japan. Also that year, the inaugural meeting of the Japan-Qatar Joint Economic Committee took place. The Qatar-Japan Business Forum was held in Qatar in August 2013, during the visit by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. There were an estimated 50 Japanese companies with offices in Qatar in 2015. In 2015, when Qatar finalized the purchase of 24 fighter jets from France, Japanese banks agreed to lend Qatar $6.8 billion for a down payment. Japan was the main destination for Qatari LNG in 2016, importing 12.1 million tonnes. This provided Japan with
Kozo Yamamoto appointed his ministerships in 2016. Yamamoto is a known advocate of reflation policies, and is one of the first to argue for using monetary easing tools to overcome deflation in Japan. As a longtime critic of the Bank of Japan's monetary tightening policies in the Diet, he chaired multiple study groups on monetary policy when the LDP was out of power, and appealed to Shinzo Abe the need for quantitative easing. Yamamoto proposed the consumption tax increase of April 2014 to Abe Shinzo, and advised swift action. He also advocated for basic allowances and various public-works projects for low-income earners