By Leika Kihara <\/p>\n
TOKYO, July 17 (Reuters) – Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Friday the government will pursue steps that encourage investment in domestic financial assets by households \u200cand state pension funds including Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF). <\/p>\n
Under law, investments by state pension \u200cfunds must be conducted exclusively for the benefit of those insured and, from a long-term perspective, take into consideration their impact \u200bon markets and other private-sector activities, she said. <\/p>\n
“At the same time, as Japan transitions toward a new growth-oriented economy, the return of a world with positive interest rates has arrived,” Takaichi told parliament. <\/p>\n
“With stock markets also performing steadily, we should pursue measures that encourage households and pension funds, including GPIF, to \u200cmake further investments in Japanese financial \u2060assets so that the public can enjoy the benefits of Japan’s economic growth,” she said. <\/p>\n
The yen rose following Takaichi’s remarks on market expectations that GPIF, the \u2060world’s largest pension fund, could shift money back into domestic assets. The Japanese currency fetched 162.13 per dollar on Friday. <\/p>\n
With GPIF having managed 293.6 trillion yen ($1.81 trillion) in assets at the end of March, any \u200bsignificant shift \u200bin its strategy could ripple through the world’s markets. <\/p>\n
“Under \u200bits asset management guidelines, GPIF has \u200csteadily accumulated domestic investment through alternative investment, and contributed Japan’s economic growth,” Takaichi said. <\/p>\n
GPIF also nimbly buys and sells assets to rebalance its portfolio, she said. “For example, during a phase where the yen is weakening and the dollar is rising, it sells foreign assets and buys domestic assets. That in turn contributes to Japan’s economy,” Takaichi said. <\/p>\n
The premier’s remarks came after Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said \u200clast week that the government would aim to steer Japan’s \u200bvast state pension funds to “substantially” increase investments in domestic assets, \u200bsparking gains in the yen and bonds. <\/p>\n
Japanese \u200bpolicymakers have struggled to combat a stubbornly weak yen that inflates import \u200ccosts, as well as selling in government bonds \u200bdriven by market concern \u200bthat Takaichi’s major spending plans could worsen the country’s already troubled finances. <\/p>\n
The GPIF currently maintains roughly equal allocations to domestic equities, foreign equities, domestic bonds and foreign bonds. <\/p>\n
Sources have told \u200bReuters Japan had no immediate plans \u200cto change target asset allocations of its state pension funds, but could work within \u200bexisting allowable ranges to direct more investment to domestic assets. <\/p>\n
($1 = 162.3500 yen) <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Leika \u200bKihara; Editing by William Maclean and Christopher Cushing) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Leika Kihara TOKYO, July 17 (Reuters) – Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Friday the government…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[37341,191,189,3060,37339,37274,1177,8,188,190,2417,27478,358,38945,12011],"class_list":["post-59929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-domestic-assets","tag-economy","tag-economy-of-japan","tag-financial-assets","tag-government-pension-investment-fund","tag-gpif","tag-investment","tag-japan","tag-japans-economy","tag-japanese-economy","tag-japanese-prime-minister","tag-pension-funds","tag-sanae-takaichi","tag-state-pension","tag-stock-markets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}