Japan wants to play a part in formulating global regulations to rein in "excessive money-making games," Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said in a speech on Thursday ahead of the Group of 20 financial summit. His comments appeared to echo the views of German leader Angela Merkel, who warned on Thursday the G20, which starts in Pittsburgh later in the day, should not be distracted from the need for more market rules.
"As we advance the liberalisation of trade and investment, international co-ordination is necessary in order to forge systems to rein in the issues of poverty and economic disparity, which are difficult to co-ordinate by simply leaving them to market mechanisms, as well as excessive money-making games," Hatoyama said in a speech at the United Nations. "Japan will play a role as a 'bridge' in international fora, including the G20, towards the formulation of common rules to that end," he said.
Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan trounced the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party in an election in August, ousting the business-friendly party from power for just the second time in its 54-year history. Hatoyama has raised eyebrows in Washington in the past with an essay published in English that attacked the "market fundamentalism" of US-led globalisation.
Hatoyama said the world economy seemed to have passed the worst stage of the crisis but that it was difficult to forecast the future. But new Japanese policies such as 5.5 trillion yen ($60.68 billion) a year in allowances for parents of young children would help boost consumption, he said.
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