When Japan last hosted the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group in September 1964, Tokyo was in the midst of preparing for the Summer Olympic Games which were to kick off a month later.
The country had overcome postwar reconstruction and the economy was on a roll. Japan had joined the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) earlier in the year and completion of the Tokaido Shinkansen line was only weeks away.
"Kakuei Tanaka, who was Japan's finance minister at the time, said that hosting an event as big as the IMF meeting has more value than organizing 100 expos" in promoting Japan's robust economic growth to the world, a Finance Ministry official said last month.