No Immediate Risk for Japan Public Financing: IMF Chief

Washington, June 28 (Jiji Press)--International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said Monday that he does not see "any kind of immediate risk" for Japan's public financing.

Japan is "different" from the rest of the world in that confidence
in the country's economy has been maintained despite the high ratio of its
public debt to gross domestic product, Strauss-Kahn told a group of
reporters, referring to a joint declaration adopted at the summit of the
Group of 20 advanced and emerging economies in Toronto on Sunday.
In the declaration, advanced G-20 members are committed to at least
halving their fiscal deficits by 2013 and stabilize or reduce the ratios of
government debts to GDP by 2016.
Japan was effectively treated as an exception to the targets and
was allowed to pursue fiscal consolidation under its own program, which was
announced recently, given its debt-to-GDP ratio which is far higher than the
ratios in other advanced countries.
Still, Strauss-Kahn said the exceptional treatment for Japan
"doesn't mean in any way that the confidence in the Japanese economy has
increased," thus indicating that the country should continue efforts to fix
its debt-ridden finances.
On China's decision earlier this month to make the yuan more
flexible, Strauss-Kahn said, "I do not expect that things are going to
change very rapidly," noting that the Chinese currency is still undervalued.
Revaluing the yuan is in the right direction, but even a very
strong revaluation "won't solve all the imbalances," Strauss-Kahn said.
"There are a lot of other sources of imbalances" which cannot be addressed
only by yuan revaluation, he said.