NIPPON



 

The Group of Seven major countries should unite in responding to China's tighter rare earth export controls, Japanese Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato said Wednesday.
 
He revealed his comments, made at a meeting of the seven nations' finance and central bank chiefs in Washington, in talks with reporters after the session. Kato said he also told the meeting that Japan is strongly concerned about the Chinese measure. The meeting did not adopt a joint statement.
 
Earlier Wednesday, Kato and U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent held a bilateral meeting for some 30 minutes, reaffirming the content of their statement adopted in September, which said, among other things, that fiscal and monetary policies "will not target exchange rates for competitive purposes."
 
Kato told Bessent that Japan hopes both sides will accelerate moves to promote Japan's investment in and loans to the United States, as agreed on in Japan-U.S. tariff negotiations.
 
Bessent said in a social media post that he and Kato discussed "the (U.S.) administration's expectation that Japan stop importing" liquefied natural gas from Russia amid Moscow's continued invasion of Ukraine.