JAPANESE CAPITAL-MARKET - NEED FOR REFORM

The Japanese capital market stands as a leading world market in terms of market and trade values, strength of underlying economy and volume of available domestic savings. However, the market performance has bee n poor since the 1990s stock crash. Excessive government fund raising, legislative barriers for involvement of financial institutions in cap ital market operations, overregulation of the securities industry and lack of competition on the domestic securities markets have been the m ain reasons for Japan's lagging behind. In the same time, the USA and EU securities markets got into fierce competition and improved their p erformance considerably. A reform of the financial sector announced by Mr. Hashimoto's government is to result in deregulation and liberalis ation of the Japan's capital market.