Hatoyama calls for improvement of financial market rules+

TOKYO, Sept. 4 Kyodo -
Democratic Party of Japan leader Yukio Hatoyama, set to become Japan's next
prime minister, said Friday the government must play an important role in
regulating financial markets in order to bring happiness to more people.
''Globally, it has become clear that the simple way of thinking that everyone
could become happy if all were left up to markets was problematic,'' Hatoyama
said in a speech in Tokyo.
He said freewheeling capitalism brought misfortune to many people by widening
economic and social disparities.
''Please don't misunderstand. I'm not saying socialistic equality will be a
solution,'' he said. ''That will take away the vitality from the economy.''
Hatoyama said what is necessary is ''to maintain appropriate tensions between
free market activities and a role that must be played by the government.''
He said that has also been the recent course of global discussions on financial
regulation reforms, seen since last year's global economic crisis.
On the back of ''reflections on excessive market fundamentalism,'' the Group of
20 major economies has been reviewing financial regulation, the DPJ president
told corporate executives and scholars at an event to celebrate the opening of
Japan's office for the World Economic Forum, headquartered in Switzerland.
He said regulation reforms should work to ''control the downside of and develop
the upside of globalization.''
Hatoyama is set to become prime minister later this month in the wake of the
DPJ's overwhelming victory in last Sunday's House of Representatives election.
==Kyodo
2009-09-04 22:01:58