TOKYO, May 21: A Japanese government panel warns there is “absolutely no guarantee” that domestic investors will keep financing the country’s massive public debt, citing the risk of a spike in bond yields that could crimp long-term growth prospects, draft report seen by Reuters shows.
The warning from the advisory panel to Finance Minister Taro Aso comes at a critical time – when the government bond market has seen volatile price falls, underscoring a delicate balancing act for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government.
Abe has unleashed huge fiscal and monetary stimulus to spur short-term growth, sending stock prices soaring. But at the same time, he is trying to convince investors that over the longer term Japan will tackle a public debt that, at more than twice the nation’s annual economic output, is the biggest in the developed world.
Whether Japan can begin to get its fiscal house in order will be key to determining if the early boost to confidence from so-called “Abenomics” can translate into balanced and sustainable growth for the world’s third-biggest economy.
The surge in Tokyo share prices in recent months has been heavily influenced by foreign investors betting Abe can break with 15 years of deflation and tepid growth.
By contrast, JGBs – more than 90 percent-owned by Japanese investors – were until recently little changed by the government’s stimulus plans and massive quantitative easing from the Bank of Japan.
“As financial transactions are being globalised, there’s a great deal of freedom for overseas investment, so there is absolutely no guarantee that Japan’s domestic funds will be directed towards JGB purchases,” the panel’s draft report, seen by Reuters on Monday, says.
“An important requirement is for JGBs to continue to be trusted by markets as safe assets.”
The 31-page draft by the Fiscal System Council notes that Japan has repeatedly promised to the Group of 20 big economies that it will halve its budget deficit, excluding debt-servicing costs, over the five years to March 2016.
The JGB market has defied decades of predictions that it was a bubble waiting to burst. Bond prices this week suffered their biggest 4-day rout in years, although this was largely due to concerns over how the market can digest the massive influx of cash from the BOJ. The central bank is buying the equivalent of 70 percent of newly issued bonds in an attempt to spur economic activity and end deflation.
Fiscal reform, though on the back burner recently, will likely grab centre stage later this year as Abe must decide by October whether to proceed with plans to double the nation’s consumption tax to 10 percent over two years.
“For all the importance of fiscal issues, the market is paying scant attention now,” said Katsutoshi Inadome, fixed income strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities. “That may change, though, as the government will make a grand fiscal reform blueprint in June and will have to decide on the consumption tax in September.”
For now, the government gets the benefit of the doubt. The cost of insuring against a Japanese government default hit a 1 1/2-year low this month, along with a global decline in prices of credit-default swaps.
FISCAL DISCIPLINE
The draft report says fiscal discipline is vital to avoid spreading concerns that the BOJ, with its huge debt purchases, is giving the government a blank cheque for profligate spending.
Such warnings of the need for fiscal reform reflect the long-held position of the Finance Ministry and the central bank.
“If the government fails to firmly tackle fiscal reforms and produce concrete results, that could lead to loss of market confidence in Japan’s finances and cause a spike in interest rates, possibly offsetting effects of monetary easing,” the panel warned in its draft report, adding that interest rates could deviate sharply from fundamentals, particularly when the BOJ eventually begins to seek an exit from its quantitative easing.
The report is preliminary and could still change before the 30-member panel submits it to Aso around the end of the month as the basis for the government’s mid-term fiscal reform plan due in the summer.
The panel’s members are drawn from academia, companies, the media, think-tanks and the labour union movement. (AGENCIES)
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