Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan came under fire Friday over remarks which suggested he had not grasped the significance of the downgrade in the country's sovereign debt rating. He told reporters Thursday he was ignorant when asked about the downgrade by Standard & Poor's to AA- from AA, the first cut since 2002, attributed to doubts over his government's ability to solve its groaning debt burden.
The prime minister was confronted by reporters about an hour after the credit ratings agency's announcement. He did not answer, saying he was "utoi" about the matter, which can be translated as "ignorant" or "unfamiliar". Kan was grilled Friday over his remark by an opposition leader who questioned his qualities as prime minister.
"I meant to say that I had not been informed about it in detail," said Kan, who became prime minister in June last year after serving as finance minister for six months. "I experienced the Greek debt crisis when I was finance minister and I had to realise how important the state finance and debt are." Natsuo Yamaguchi, head of the opposition Komeito Party, said Kan's excuse about a lack of information itself provoked "fresh anxieties" about his risk management.
"Such an attitude on the prime minister's part causes grave concerns. It should be strictly debated" in parliament, Yamaguchi told reporters. Kan repeated the excuse late Friday when he faced the same reporters in a nightly doorstep interview at his office.
Mentioning the overall impact of the downgrade, he said: "It was good that there was no big impact on the markets. I believe there still remains confidence in our country." Kan then left Tokyo for a three-day trip to the Swiss resort of Davos to attend the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.
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