State is responsible for Ashikaga Bank going bankrupt: JCP

The government on November 29 recognized Ashikaga Bank, a major local bank, as bankrupt and decided to temporarily nationalize it using tax money for bailing it out.

At a House of Representatives committee meeting on December 4, Japanese Communist Party representative Sasaki Kensho said that the government must be held responsible for driving Tochigi Prefecture's largest bank with total assets of 5 trillion yen into bankruptcy by allowing the Financial Services Agency to apply excessively severe standards for asset evaluation to the local bank.

Sasaki said that by imposing the new standards in which the values of assets are represented as lower than before, the FSA treated the local bank on the same footing as major banks and that this has possibly caused the bankruptcy.

Takenaka Heizo, minister in charge of economic, fiscal, and financial policy, tried to evade the responsibility by saying that it was a question between the bank and its auditor.

JCP Sasaki said that 15,126 corporations and individuals undertook newly issued stocks in 1999 and 2002 in an effort to support the local bank which contributes to the regional economy. He said that the goodwill of these individuals, which outnumbered corporations fourfold, has been betrayed since the value of the stocks they hold has become nil. (end)