U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said Tuesday he hopes Japan will return to its role as an engine for the global economy by learning from the experiences of the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s and finding its own way of fixing its economic problems.
"We all know the diagnosis by now: a distressed banking system with too many nonperforming borrowers; persistent deflation; and a rigid and overly regulated economic structure that discourages risk-taking, competition and innovation," Snow said in a speech at a Japan Society dinner in New York.
Snow said Japan must find its own solutions to the problems, solutions that meet the needs of its unique society and institutions to win broad public support.
"I'm not here to preach American answers to Japanese problems," he said. "I'm here to say that we believe in Japan, and that we believe that Japan will take actions to overcome these obstacles and return to a position of economic leadership and growth in the world."