TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said on Saturday that France's credit downgrade puts the focus on Japan to get its own fiscal house in order.
Europe's debt crisis "is not just a disaster on the other shore," Noda said in a televised interview with TV Tokyo. "Even France was downgraded. Japan could be in the spotlight" if its fiscal management continues to focus on what is only good for the present.
Japan needs to conduct its fiscal management with a "sense of crisis," he added.
Standard & Poor's downgraded the credit ratings of nine euro-zone countries on Friday, stripping France and Austria of their coveted triple-A status.
Noda made his comments after he reshuffled his cabinet on Friday in a move aimed at improving chances of getting a divided parliament to pass laws doubling the 5 percent sales tax by 2015.
Noda chose Katsuya Okada, a fiscal hawk who has held key government and party posts, to be his deputy to oversee tax and social security reform.
Japan's public debt is already twice the size of the $5 trillion economy, as it struggles to balance fiscal discipline with funding post-quake reconstruction and the steep welfare costs of its aging population.
"I will stake my political life" on completing social security and tax reform, Noda said on Saturday.
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