TOKYO: Japan is working closely with the United States as it strengthens its foreign investment screening framework to safeguard national security against evolving geopolitical risks, Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said on Friday.
Japan last month enacted a major overhaul of its foreign investment screening law, creating a new cross-ministerial committee to review foreign acquisitions and closing critical loopholes.
The new committee, modelled on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), is expected to be launched within a few weeks.
“Since the United States is ahead when it comes to CFIUS-related matters, they have in a sense been providing us with technical support, particularly in areas like information,” Katayama said at a regular press conference.
“We view our investment screening system as aligned with what could be described as Western standards,” she added.
Katayama said that Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda’s absence from next week’s meeting would have no impact. Ueda, now in hospital for a two-week treatment for an infected liver cyst, will miss the two-day meeting concluding on June 16, where the central bank is expected to raise interest rates to a 31-year high of one per cent.
She also said the government hopes to expand the variety of Japanese government bond(JGB) products in a bid to attract more retail investors, adding that households are not yet fully aware of the benefits of retail JGBs and that she saw more sales potential.
Reuters reported last month that the government is expected to introduce a new range of government bonds targeting retail buyers, a move aimed at filling a void left by diminishing buying by the BOJ as it winds down stimulus.
The new line-up will include inflation-linked bonds and super-long JGB limited to purchases by households.