JAPAN A BORROWER.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume III, Issue 325, 10 January 1914, Page 5

JAPAN A BORROWER.

£29.000.000 FRENCH LOAN. [PBESS ASSOCIATION —COPYBIGHT. | Tokio, Jan. 9. The Government is negotiating with French capitalists for a twentymillion sterling loan, spread over four years, for the development of the national resources.

For some time the rumour has circulated in the vernacular press in Tokio that the Japanese Government has decided to raise further foreign loans to defray the cost of the extension of the railways. In fact, it was generally admitted, even in financial and Government circles, that a loan was looming in the offing, though the exact amount and the date of the same depended to a great extent on the conditions of the markets abroad. Reuter's correspondent ' learns that the scheme which the Government has in contemplation is a very extensive one, involving a totaL borrowing of £40.000.000 sterling. This amount is to be spread over ten years at the rate of £4,000,000 sterling per annum, and the product of the loan is to be devoted to the railways inJapan and Manchuria. Negotiations have been in progress for some weeks now with the Paris House of Rothschild, through the medium of Mr. Watanabe, the Japanese director of the FrancoJapanese Bank. At a meeting held recently of the Agricultural and Industrial Bankers’ Association, the president of the association, Mr. Nakayama, drew atention-to the impossibility of securing low interest capital from the National Treasury, and stated that it had been decided to raise a loan abroad through the medium of the Industrial Bank. For further particulars, he introduced to the members, Mr. Shimura, the president of the latter, who said: —‘One of the most important questions to be solved at present is as to how to secure capital for the use of the Agricultural and Industrial banks. The National Treasury used to furnish low interest capital out cf the postal savings, but can no longer do so, as the saving have declined to the extent cf 20,000,000 yon. The only posssible way 7 to meet the pressing need for capital is to depend upon foreign loans, and the authorities, perceiving the impossibility of pursuing any other course, have conceded their consent.