Discussions On The Second Day Of The G7 Finance Ministers And Central Bank Governors’ Meeting: Summary Of The Joint Press Conference By Japan Minister Katayama, Minister Of Finance And Minister Of State For Financial Services, And Governor Ueda Of The Bank Of Japan

[Opening remarks:]

Minister)

I will brief you on the main points of today’s discussions on the second day of the G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ Meeting, as well as the bilateral meetings.
... Regarding emerging technologies in the financial sector, in light of recent developments in frontier AI models such as Mythos, we agreed to strengthen information exchange among G7 experts and to advance efforts to identify best practices. Following the G7 meeting, I attended the No Money for Terror conference this afternoon, where we discussed measures to combat the terrorist financing. I delivered the opening remarks at a session on preventing the misuse of new financial technologies.

[Questions and answers:]

Q.

I have a question for Minister Katayama. Looking at the G7 Joint Statement, it appears that the G7 has demonstrated unity around addressing challenges related to China. Looking back on the discussions, what do you see as the key factors that contributed to this sense of unity? Were there any areas where you felt that the discussions did not go far enough, or where alignment among members proved difficult?

A.

Looking ahead to the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Evian next month, there remain a number of issues that will need to be further advanced. ... Similarly, critical minerals are a key issue. On June 10, the Business 7 (B7) Summit will convene in Paris, bringing together financial institutions and private-sector stakeholders related to critical minerals, to discuss concrete actions, including diversification of procurement. This is a significant development, and an important question will be how far such elements can be reflected in the Leaders’ Communiqué. More broadly, at the preparatory stage, meetings of finance ministers and central bank governors play a central role in shaping the Leaders’ Communiqué. In that sense, I believe this meeting contributed to advancing discussions along the lines you suggested, based on a shared and realistic assessment of the current situation.