The nation's business leaders on Tuesday welcomed the government's package of pump-priming measures as effective, but called for measures to solve problems in the financial sector and for the government to reform the nation's taxation and administrative systems to stimulate the economy.
Following the failure of Hokkaido Takushoku Bank on Monday, Jiro Ushio, head of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizi Doyukai), said the government should establish a system to stabilize the nation's financial system as early as possible and that if necessary, the government should consider injecting public funds to avoid a financial crisis. While welcoming the government's economic package, he said the world is watching how Japan deals with the major problem of nonperforming loans held by the nation's financial institutions and that it is about time the government worked out a substantial policy to solve the problem. "The public will accept the use of public funds if the money is strictly limited to protecting customers' savings and if the responsibility of the troubled financial institutions is clarified," Ushio said.
Jiro Nemoto, chairman of the Japan Federation of Employers' Associations (Nikkeiren), also agreed that the use of public money will be indispensable in dismissing people's concerns over Tokyo's sagging financial markets. Kosaku Inaba, chairman of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said some of the measures in the economic package will create incentives for private companies.