Press Conference by the Minister for Financial Services

(Excerpt)

May 7 , 2004

From May 1^st to May 5^th, I visited Italy and the United Kingdom. In Italy, I had meetings with Dr. Enzo Cardi, the President of Poste Italiane, and Mr. Maurizio Gasparri, the Minister for Communications. I learned about experience of Italy's postal-service privatization, and exchanged views about Japan's postal-service reform currently under consideration. I also visited to observe the regional revitalization efforts being made in urban and rural areas. In the U.K., I discussed macroeconomic policies of Japan and the U.K. with Dr. Mervyn Allister King, the Governor of the Bank of England. I also exchanged views with Mr. Callum McCarthy, the Chairman of the Financial Services Authority, about the current state of the financial sector in Japan and the U.K., and our efforts to develop sound and stable financial systems. I acknowledged that it is significant to further conduct the structural reform which is currently being promoted by the Koizumi Cabinet, based on the postal-service privatization and other experiences of those countries.