Press Conference by the Minister for Financial Services

(Excerpt)

27 November, 2001

Q.

The major banks have disclosed their interim financial statements by yesterday, and the total amounts of bad loans to be written off became clear, exceeding six trillion yen. Tell us your impressions and evaluations about the fact again as Minister in charge. After that, we would like to hear what you want major banks or financial industries to do in the future.

A.

As you have pointed out just now, major banks published their interim financial statements and projections of the full-term performance on 22nd and 26th. These statements gave us an estimate of more than six trillion yen in total for dealing with Non-Performing Loans.

Although this amount is nothing more than a projection, I suppose they announced these figures boldly to prepare sufficiently for the business conditions, changes in conditions and the execution of inspections. Therefore, I evaluate positively these preparations.

Moreover, I also realize their positive attitudes not only toward restructuring, but also toward development of new profit sources. I strongly hope them to materialize their ideas. Since I believe the banking business should be based on increasing profits through restructuring and development of new profit sources. They described many ideas about these matters, and I do expect they will materialize such ideas powerfully in the near future.