In elaborating on the structural changes in Japan's economy during the past six years, let me divide these changes into four stages: (1) economic expansion led by external demand and growth in outward investment by firms; (2) spillover to the domestic business fixed investment of firms; (3) rise in the labor force participation rate, reflecting an acute labor shortage; and (4) improvement in the robustness of the economy owing to these three stages of structural changes.
At the Ministry of Finance, I had daily contact with the foreign exchange markets as Japan's foreign exchange authority. At the Asian Development Bank (ADB), it raised funds necessary for development finance by issuing bonds in global financial markets.