Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has pledged to take every possible step to avert financial crisis, hinting at yet another injection of public money into banks suffering from bad loans.
"We are preparing to take bold and flexible measures to prevent unnecessary financial confusion from occurring," Koizumi said at his first news conference of the year, held at his official residence in Tokyo on Friday.
At the same time, he denied any intention to postpone the scheduled end to the government's full deposit protection in cases of failures of financial institutions.