[A-List] Banking group joins chorus of gloom over Japan

[Mark Jones <markjones011@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Reuters, 09.11.02, 6:17 AM ET



TOKYO, Sept 11 (Reuters) - An association of globally active banks endorsed 
on Wednesday the International Monetary Fund's call for Japan to use 
taxpayers' money to purge the country's banks of non-performing loans.

Charles Dallara, managing director of the Washington-based Institute for 
International Finance, said some Japanese banks this year had been more 
aggressive than ever before in writing off sour loans. Regulators, too, 
deserved credit for redoubling their efforts to clean up the banking system.

But he said he broadly agreed with IMF Managing Director Horst Koehler, who 
called on Tuesday for public money to be used to accelerate the disposal of 
bad loans and bank restructuring.

"It is time for stronger and bolder action. Sometime you really do need to 
take tough decisions to separate the wheat and the chaff if the wheat is 
going to grow," said Dallara.

The IIF groups some 320 banks, insurers and asset management firms.

Dallara said he favoured an injection of funds into selected banks, not a 
blanket recapitalisation, to help Japan snap out of the economic doldrums.

"One still has the impression that both weak corporate borrowers and weak 
financial institutions are perhaps being protected at the expense of 
Japanese people and Japanese recovery," he said.

Despite efforts by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Dallara said he was 
very concerned that Japan lacked the political consensus needed to usher in 
the bold, comprehensive reforms required to restore dynamism to the world's 
second-largest economy.

"Without such a clear consensus it's difficult to see a sharp turn in the 
road so that Japan can leave behind this decade of sluggishness," he said.

Copyright 2002, Reuters News Service