Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki said Friday he will leave this weekend for a seven-day visit to the United States for talks with U.S. policymakers as well as the heads of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
On his list of meetings for the trip, which begins Sunday, are talks with U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, and Ben Bernanke, chairman of U.S. President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers who is expected to succeed Greenspan in February, as well as business leaders.
"I would like to fully explain to senior U.S. administration officials and business leaders about the developments and aims of Japan's structural reforms," Tanigaki said at a news conference after the first Cabinet meeting of 2006.