Financial authorities in Britain and the United States have expressed understanding for Japan's assessment of the bad loans in its financial sector and its plans to get rid of them, Financial Services Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa said Thursday.
"I have completed my task of giving briefings on the measures I have taken since I came to office in December. The responses to my explanations were quite warm," Yanagisawa said at a news conference in Washington, summing up his one-week tour of Britain and the U.S.
Yanagisawa met with Bank of England Gov. Eddie George and Howard Davis, chairman of the Financial Services Authority, in London last weekend.
He then flew to New York on Tuesday for talks with William McDonough, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He arrived in Washington on Wednesday for talks with financial leaders, including International Monetary Fund chief Horst Koehler, top White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan.