The increased capital constraints that I mentioned earlier have made strengthening financial institutions' capital bases all the more important also in Japan, even though its financial system remains stable compared with those of the United States and Europe.
Against this background, the revised Act on Special Measures for Strengthening Financial Functions was passed by the Diet in December to improve the framework for utilizing public funds. Many of the measures being taken in the United States and Europe at present are very similar to those adopted in Japan to fight the financial crisis in and after the second half of the 1990s.