Tokyo's challenge

Chief economist at the Sumitomo Life Research Centre Makoto Nomura addresses a seminar in Hong Kong yesterday on the economic situation in Japan and its future. Mr Nomura says that while the measures recently announced by the Japanese Government to address the country's crisis-ridden banking sector are a positive sign of a change in attitude towards the country's problems, further deregulation of the market to wipe out inefficiencies and to allow foreign competition is needed to turn the economy around.