Finance

Finance

Japan’s finance minister taken to hospital after hard work on budget

28 December 2009 11:25 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA-Economics. Japan’s Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii, 77, was hospitalised Monday for a rest and medical tests due to high blood pressure and fatigue after weeks of hard work on the budget, his ministry said, AFP reported.
Financial markets reacted calmly to the announcement, with the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Nikkei-225 index striking a four-month high.
"The minister was hospitalised at 10.00 am (0100 GMT) today to rest and get check-ups," a finance ministry spokesman said.
"He has been tired and his blood pressure was a bit high as he had been working hard to draft the budget."
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s three-month-old government on Friday approved a record budget worth 92.3 trillion yen (1.0 trillion dollars) for the next financial year starting in April, seeking to revive the economy.
Fujii, a veteran lawmaker, was picked by incoming premier Hatoyama in September to steer the world’s number two economy out of its worst recession in decades, returning to a post he held briefly in the early 1990s.
He is expected to attend the next cabinet meeting, possibly on Wednesday, the ministry spokesman said, adding that the length of hospitalisation would be decided by doctors.
Kyodo News reported that Fujii would stay in hospital for several days.
Fujii, a fan of baseball and Japanese rice wine, told reporters in September when he was appointed: "My view on life is that if you square your shoulders too much, your body becomes stiff. I’ll work while being relaxed."
Investors took news of his hospitalisation in their stride, with the Nikkei-225 index rising 139.52 points to end at 10,634.23, the best finish since August 26.
The dollar gained to 91.57 yen in Tokyo afternoon trade from 91.47 in late Asian trade on Friday, but traders attributed the greenback’s strength to upbeat US economic data rather than to concerns about Fujii’s health.
"There is no impact on the currency market," said Barclays Capital analyst Masafumi Yamamoto, noting that at the yen’s current level, speculation about whether Fujii might order intervention to weaken the currency has faded.
A law graduate of the elite University of Tokyo, Fujii spent more than 20 years with the finance ministry before turning his hand to politics, winning a seat in parliament for the first time in 1977.
He has signalled tolerance of the current strength of the yen and said that in principle the government should refrain from intervening in the market to sell the currency and boost exports.