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米、G20 に軸足鮮明 ガイトナー財務長官インタビュー

米国ガイトナー新財務長官へのインタビュー記事を読むと、世界経済が、限られた国による支配から、確実にグローバル化している現実がはっきりと伝わります。

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【ワシントン = 尾形聡彦】 ガイトナー米財務長官が、朝日新聞の船橋洋一主筆のインタビューに応じた。 ガイトナー財務長官は「20 カ国・地域会議 (G20) を、より活発な合意形成の場にしていくことにこれまで以上の決意を持っている」と述べ、G20 を今後、経済・金融政策面での主要な国際協議の場に発展させる姿勢を鮮明にした。 ガイトナー財務長官が、日本メディアのインタビューを受けるのは初めて。

財務長官は、従来の主要な枠組みだった主要 7 カ国財務相・中央銀行総裁会議 (G7) について「主要国経済にとっての重要な会議という自然な役割を担い続ける」と指摘。 G20 と G7 が「相互補完的」に機能するとの見通しを示しながらも、G20 の特徴について「世界経済のバランスの変化をより反映している」とし、中国やブラジルなど世界経済での存在感を増している新興国を交えた G20 の重要性を強調した。

金融危機の再発を防ぐために、米金融当局が金融大手 19 行を対象に経営基盤の強さを調べている「特別検査」を巡っては「米政府は、必要があれば、(銀行への追加の)資本注入を行う用意がある」と発言。 資本不足の銀行があれば、公的資金の再注入など万全の態勢で臨む姿勢を改めて示した。 また今後金融危機の第 2 波がありうるかとの質問には「それはない」と明確に否定した。

財務長官は中国について、「世界的な金融危機を安定化させる役割を演じており、歓迎する」と高く評価した。 就任前の 1 月に「為替を操作している」として、中国を批判していた姿勢を一変させた。 理由として、中国の大規模な景気対策による内需拡大策や、実質実効レートで切り上げ状態を受け入れている為替政策をあげた。

また、「金融システムの機能が損なわれているときには、金融政策に加えて財政出動も重要だ。 (財政出動は)継続的に行う必要がある。」と述べて、引き続き景気対策の必要性を強調した。 現在、世界経済が直面する主要なリスクとして、「世界経済の成長があまりにも小さくなっていること」を指摘。 世界各国が財政出動策で協調する必要性をにじませた。

一方で、「最悪の時期は脱したと確信できれば、すぐにそうした支援策をゆるめて、赤字を減らす決意だ」として、中期的な財政再建の必要性を訴えた。

- 朝日新聞 4-19-09 -

INTERVIEW WITH TIMOTHY GEITHNER, SECRETARY, U. S. TREASURY

BY DR. YOICHI FUNABASHI, Editor-in-Chief of The Asahi Shimbun

MR. FUNABASHI: It seems to me that Goldman Sachs is trying to press a different path to return the money back to the government, but it could also destabilize that situation because the weaker one may become to be more vulnnerable.

How do you treat Goldman Sachs?

SEC. GEITHNER: Let me just step back as I do not comment on any specific institutions. Like Japan the United States has many types of banks and these banks individually are in very different circumstances.

Some banks have a lot of capital, while some may need a little bit more. Some banks will find it easier to raise capital from the markets, while some may, for a time find that more difficult. Our key objective regarding the US financial system is to make sure there is enough capital in the system so that the banking system can support a strong economic recovery.

MR. FUNABASHI: I see. Is there any danger or risk for us to see the second wave of, you know, the collapse of banking, you know, the institutions if we would mishandle the stress test, you know, putting the public money into the companies?

SEC. GEITHNER: No, I don't think so because we're being very clear that we want to make sure there is continuity of funding, the banks are able to meet their commitments as we go through this process of adjustment, and that the government is prepared to put capital in where it's necesssary.

So in some ways what we're saying is we're going to backstop the amount of capital-raising that's necessary.

And, again, a lot of that will come from the market, ultimately. But where it dosen't we'll make sure we provide it.

MR. FUNABASHI: given that the Japanese, you know, public debt ratio is 156 percent of GDP, it's a danger.

SEC. GEITHNER: I think right now the dominant risk still is that the world economy grows too little, not too much, but we all have to be clear that we're committed to unwind our support and bring our deficits down as soon as we're confident that we're past the worst point of this.

But you have to realize that different room to maneuver - - we're all in very difficult circumstances in terms of each of our initial positions when the crisis started, in terms of debt-to-GDP ratio and in terms of how our own citizens respond to spending by the government and tax cuts.

MR. FUNABASHI: I see. The president that the United States needs to spend less at home and export more abroad. He certainly is referring to another risk or danger of global imbalance.

So far, how far have you succeeded in addressing this issue overcoming this imbalance issue?

SEC. GEITHNER: Well, as you know, the U. S. current account deficit has come down quite a lot from its peaks at around 7 percent of GDP. It's now under 4 percent. My general sense is that we're going to see a more balanced global recovery, one that is less reliant on the U. S. consumer.

That's good for the United States, good for the world. And you're seeing if you just take Japan as an example you're seeing policies directed towards shifting the composition of demand toward domestic demand, because that's a more sustainable basis fro recoverry going forward.

And I think that will be healthy for the system. But it's very important that we emerge from this with a more balanced compostion of growth within our economies and around the world.

MR. FUNABASHI: You said that China is not manipulating currency now, but that in your confirmation testimony, you said that China does.

What has changed between, you know, in the past three months?

SEC. GEITHNER: In January I said we would carefully evaluate conditions in the world and China over this period of time before we made the determination.

Two things that have changed quite dramatically.

First, there is much broader recognition of the magnitude of this economic crisis arounf the world and you've seen very substantial changes in exchange rates globally because of the response of the crisis.

Secondly, if you look at China specifically, China is committed to a more flexible regime over time. China's exchange rate appreciated quite substantially in real terms. China's accumulation of foreign reserves has slowed and they are putting in place economic policies that will encourage domestic demand and growth. Those are healthy things for the economy and I think they're playing a stabilizing role in the global fincial crisis, a role that we should welcome.

MR. FUNABASHI: What do you think about the future of the G-7?

Do you think the G-7 is still very much valuable and important vehicle?

SEC. GEITHNER: My own personal sense is, that the G7 will still play its natural role; it serves an important forum for the major economies to come together and determine how we address common challenges.

As you know, when I sat in the Treasury 10 years ago, we proposed to the world that we establish this G-20 group because it better reflected the changes in the balance of economic activity in the world, and now more than ever we're committed to making the G-20 a more active place for consensus-building, just as the G-7 has for such a long time. They're very complementary forums.

MR. FUNABASHI: Complementary, Isee. G-20 in New York in September; what do you regard as the most important agenda?

SEC. GEITHNER: The main agenda is to take stock of efforts underway to help promote a recovery and to make sure we're making progress on reforming both our domestic financial systems as well as the global financial system. Those two things we must take stock of our progress on recovery and reform.

MR. FUNABASHI: I'll pose the last question now: You were taking about the lesson from Japan and Japan's lost decade, and you actually wre in the midst of that, in Tokyo, at that time and, you know, since you became the secretary, you know, of the Treasury, what have you learned yoursel, and your learning from Japanese lesson, has it helped you addressing this overcoming this issue?

SEC. GEITHNER: I spent my life in the Treasury watching how countries managed a whole range of differrent types of financial crises, not just in Japan, but also in emerging markets.

And of course, I've studied what the United States did in past financial crisis. I believe deeply the basic lessons of those crises you began very eloquently with this which is that if you don't repair the finanical system early - - if don't get captal in, if you don't help restructure and clean up the system - - then you risk a more prolonged recession and a slower recovery.

Another basic lesson is that when you have impaired financial system, it's very important that you have fiscal policy play an important role alogside monetary policy. They need to be working together if you wait to do one if you use them out of sequence, where if you end up stepping on the brakes one year and the accelerator the next year, back and forth you'll do much more damage and prolong recovery.

MR. FUNABASHI: Yeah, we did that, yeath, in 1996. But one difference is, you know in

SEC. GEITHNER: There are a lot of differences between the situation today and the Japanese situation in the 1990s, and you know, I think these comparisons are too simplified.

My own sense is that Japan, in many ways, did quite well over that period of time despite the perception.

It was a lost decade of growth, but in many ways, economic activity was quite stable at that period of time and income growth quite stable.

MR. FUNABASHI: Yeath, so what kind of lesson, you know, you can learn from that?

SEC. GEITHNER: Well, it's that the governments need to provide, on a temporary basis, carefully targeted support for demand and to get credit flowing again.

Now, our challenges are more broad than yours in some ways, our banking system has a lot of strength, a lot of capital, a lot of capital in parts of the system but we have these, capital markets that were much more important to credit than they were in Japan in the '90s. Here much of the mechanism for providing credit to businesses and households has broken down, and it's very impaired still. We can't fix our crisis just by working on the banks; we have to do many other thinhs to get credit markets working, and that's a much more complicated interaction.

- asahi.com 4-19-09 -


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