May 11, 2005
Financial Services Agency, Japan

Meeting between Minister Ito and U.S. SEC Chairman Donaldson

1. Minister of State for Financial Services Tatsuya Ito met Chairman William H. Donaldson of Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States on May 3, 2005 in Washington, D.C.
2. Minister and Chairman briefly exchanged views on the recent developments and measures in the Japanese and the U.S. securities markets, respectively.
3. Minister and Chairman agreed to have regular high-level dialogues between FSA and SEC on common issues of globalized securities markets.
   The first of such meetings is expected to take place in late June this year in Tokyo.
4. Minister and Chairman welcomed dialogues including self-regulatory organizations (SRO) as necessary. For this purpose, for example, the Japanese joint mission including FSA, stock exchanges and JSDA (Japan Securities Dealers Association) will visit the United States, and have dialogues with the SEC, U.S. stock exchanges and NASD.
5. Minister and Chairman also expressed their support for an enhanced dialogue between Accounting Standards Board of Japan (ASBJ) and Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) under the environment of progress in international convergence of accounting standards.