Japan finance minister to skip G-20 meeting next week in Scotland+

TOKYO, Oct. 26 Kyodo -
Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii will not attend next week's two-day finance
meeting of the Group of 20 major economies at St. Andrews in Scotland, as he
needs to give priority to domestic affairs, government sources said Monday.

An extraordinary Diet session began Monday and Fujii needs to address a number
of important issues for the new government led by the Democratic Party of
Japan, such as those regarding the forthcoming fiscal year's state budget, the
sources said.
Senior Vice Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda is expected to take part in the
meeting on behalf of Fujii, they said.
The meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors on Nov. 6 to 7 will
serve as a follow-up to the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh in late September.
In the U.S. city, the G-20 leaders agreed to transform the relatively new
framework of major industrialized countries and emerging heavyweights into the
''premier'' global economic forum.
Among the major topics expected to be discussed at the upcoming meeting are the
latest state of the global economy, how to put ''a framework for strong,
sustainable and balanced growth,'' agreed in Pittsburgh, into shape and an
effective finance mechanism to fight climate change.
The new framework, proposed by U.S. President Barack Obama, is aimed at fixing
global imbalances by having the G-20 members periodically check each other's
economic policies, with help from the International Monetary Fund.
But details of how to do this mutual assessment exactly have not been
sufficiently clarified.
The G-20 consists of the Group of Seven industrialized countries -- Britain,
Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States -- and emerging
heavyweights such as Brazil, China, India and Russia.
==Kyodo