Press Conference by the Minister for Financial Services

(Excerpt)

January 30 , 2004

Q.

Concerning the proposal for modernizing and simplifying the listing rules in the UK by the Financial Services Authority of the UK (UKFSA), the Financial Services Agency sent a comment letter to request UKFSA to continue to accept Japan GAAP after 2005, and the Tokyo Stock Exchange took similar action yesterday. In Europe, the European Union inclines to adopt International Accounting Standards in 2005. What kind of action will you take for making Japan GAAP to be accepted?

A.

Our basic approach and stance is that the accounting standards should be easy to use for companies when carrying out international activities, and be useful to investors of Japanese companies. While acknowledging the broad trend towards the convergence of accounting standards on a global scale and recognizing some problems unique to Japan, we should make efforts for harmonization in that regard.