PRESS CONFERENCE
Hirohisa Fujii, Minister of Finance

The speech and Q & A will be in Japanese with English interpretation

Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii is a veteran fiscal policymaker but, since taking office last month, he has to deal with market gyrations that have included rapid declines in the yen-dollar exchange rate, in part triggered by his comments that Japan and other major economies must not guide their currencies in order to boost exports.

Fujii has clarified that the government is not trying to guide the forex market toward a stronger yen, emphasizing that stable foreign exchange rates are desirable for sustained global economic growth and that Tokyo would counter excessive exchange rate movements.

The minister has said that previous Liberal Democratic Party governments were too focused on supporting major companies and exports, a policy he describes as a legacy of Japan's post-war economic boom between the 1950s and early 1970s.

Fuji, 77, was a Finance Ministry official before becoming a politician in 1977, holding the finance portfolio between 1993 and 1994. In August 1993, Fujii and other lawmakers joined with Yukio Hatoyama, now prime minister, to launch an opposition party under Morihiro Hosokawa. The Democratic Party of Japan, under Hatoyama, scored a landslide victory in the August general election, creating a non-LDP government for the first time in 15 years.

Hirohisa Fujii, Minister of Finance