Japan to hear latest U.S. financial situation from Geithner+

WASHINGTON, April 24 Kyodo -
Japanese Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano will meet Friday in Washington with U.S.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to find out more about the latest financial
situation of the world's largest economy.
Japan is ''interested in hearing some fresh information on U.S. financial
system conditions, including the progress of the so-called stress tests,''
assessing the capital health of the top 19 U.S. banks, if possible, a senior
Japanese official said.
U.S. regulators are expected to give preliminary outcomes of the stress tests
to the banks Friday and announce the final results on May 4, according to U.S.
media reports.
In the talks to be held prior to a meeting of Group of Seven finance ministers
and central bank governors, Yosano is expected to brief Geithner on Japan's new
stimulus package, to be implemented with a largest-ever fiscal spending of 15.4
trillion yen, the official said.
Yosano and Geithner will most likely reaffirm the need to keep making concerted
efforts to fight the crisis and acknowledge that there are persisting downside
risks to growth, even though some tentative signs of economic stabilization
have recently been noticed.
The meeting is scheduled to run for about 30 minutes, according to Japan's
Finance Ministry.
Later in the day, Yosano, Geithner and their counterparts from Britain, Canada,
France, Germany and Italy will get together to discuss the global economic
outlook and what remains to be done to avert a deeper recession.
==Kyodo
2009-04-24 22:56:18