Following is the gist of remarks made by Mr. Takashi Imai, Chairman, Keidanren, at a scheduled press conference on 26 March 2001. Translation is rush and tentative, and sequence of the gist does not necessarily coincide with words delivered.
(Asked on his views on the stock market)
Some say we passed the bottom test but I am not sure. In Japan, the new Bank of Japan policy should have brought some positive notes. It must be noted there is an expectation that LDP is finally serious in trying to revitalize capital market.
The largest of remaining problems is cross holding shares among financial institutions. Financial institutions claim that they originally had ¥70 trillion worth of bad loan and they wrote off 80% of that, but, they still have ¥30 trillion. I am particularly worried about that. As for the idea of creating a third party institution to buy up all cross holding shares, I don't know the reason behind pouring public money into such an institution.
(Asked what should be implemented as emergency economic measures)
Keidanren has been calling for drastic reform of the stock market. One is implementation of treasury stock scheme. Another is tax reform to bring back private investors to the stock market.
(Asked on corporate restructuring related laws to be implemented in April)
Changes of commercial code are already in place, and we are waiting for tax reform that should have accompanied the law changes. We are also waiting for consolidated taxation to be implemented. With everything in place, many companies including large financial groups will use the system for sure.
(Asked on his views about Ms. Domoto winning Chiba Prefecture Governor election)
It seems voters are saying no to existing political parties. It's nice that local people are increasingly concerned about self-governance, meaning a positive step toward more autonomous local governments.
(Asked on budget bill passed by the House of Councillors)
It is nice to know the budge bill is passed. As the result budgetary spending will continue uninterrupted, causing no stop in policy execution.
(Asked on Japan-Russia summit meeting and Keidanren's mission to Russia)
I believe the baseline of negotiation was paved as the result of summit meeting. Keidanren has been planning to visit Russia in June by a request from President Putin upon his visit to Tokyo last year. Now it appears that the mission will be government sponsored and the timing will be negotiated between the two governments.