Japan to seek to take lead in creating new financial order: Aso

Prime Minister Taro Aso has made an ambitious bid to take the lead in creating a new global financial mechanism, as Japan announced its fresh commitment to tackling the global economic crisis.

Aso wound up his visit here to attend a summit of the world’s top leaders, which ended on Saturday by adopting an action plan to boost flagging global growth and prevent future financial upheaval.

“Throughout this summit, I felt high expectations to Japan,” Aso told a news conference.

“The world is now entering a new era,” Aso said. “I think Japan should take concrete action. We would like to continue taking the initiative in establishing an economic system that can correspond to the new era.”

During the summit, Japan announced a plan to lend up to 100 billion dollars to the International Monetary Fund to help provide financial lifelines to crisis-hit emerging countries.

Japan separately agreed to invest two billion dollars in a new World Bank fund to help recapitalize banks in smaller emerging markets.

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Aso also stressed that Tokyo has an “outstanding experience” of overcoming its own financial crisis triggered by massive bad debts in the late 1990s, like the current turmoil which began in the United States.

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