TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Monday criticized calls to issue deficit-covering government bonds to fund economic measures aimed at cushioning the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump's higher tariffs and persistent inflation.

"Those making such an assertion appear to take the world with interest rates lightly," Ishiba told a parliamentary session at a time when the Bank of Japan is in the process of normalizing the country's ultraloose monetary policy.

"As the period of low or zero interest rates dragged on, they seem to have become less sensitive" to the issue, Ishiba said in response to a question by an unaffiliated lawmaker.

Ishiba's remarks come amid intensifying debates among parties over stimulus steps, including a cut to the consumption tax rate, and how to finance the measures, in the run-up to the House of Councillors election expected in July.

Among the opposition, the increasingly vocal Democratic Party for the People has called for issuing government bonds.

Last week, Ishiba's ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner, the Komeito party, agreed to consider new economic measures.

But Ishiba has no plans to reduce the consumption tax rate, according to sources with knowledge of the matter, amid a concern that a tax cut would constrain the government's fiscal condition.

Japan's state debt rose to a record 1,323.72 trillion yen ($9 trillion) as of the end of March, up 26.55 trillion yen from a year earlier, according to Finance Ministry data released on Friday, highlighting the country's deteriorating fiscal health, the worst among advanced economies.

A potential increase in bond issuance would further strain government finances as interest rates climb.

The BOJ has raised the key rate three times since March last year, when it carried out its first hike in 17 years and ended the decade-long framework of unconventional monetary easing.