Tokyo >> Japan’s Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry intends to subsidize part of the costs that restaurants, cafes and other eating establishments incur to set up rooms or spaces exclusively for smoking, starting next fiscal year.

The plan aims to encourage business operators who are hesitant to establish separate rooms or spaces due to costs, thus strengthening measures to prevent passive smoking, or nonsmokers inhaling tobacco smoke.

The ministry will appropriate about $50.1 million in its initial budget request for next fiscal year for measures to prevent passive smoking, including subsidies and educational resources. The amount will be about five times larger than in the previous fiscal year.

The planned subsidies will be provided if operators of eating establishments set up rooms with ventilators exclusively for smoking, or modify interiors for the purpose.

The maximum individual subsidy will be about about $17,700. The government will shoulder half of the costs for construction and other expenses falling within this range.

In addition to eating establishments, the ministry plans to allow retail stores, accommodation facilities and others to apply for the subsidies.

The ministry expects to spend about $26.5 million from its budget for the subsidy scheme.

The original subsidy plan, which was introduced in fiscal 2011, was for small and midsize companies. It was later expanded to include eating establishments.