Post date: October 25, 2004
From Oct. 22 to Oct. 24, leaders of the financial systems of the United States and Japan convened in Portsmouth, NH to discuss issues affecting the global financial system. The occasion was the seventh annual Symposium on Building the Financial System of the 21st Century: An Agenda for Japan and the United States, sponsored by the Harvard Law School Program on International Financial Systems, in cooperation with The International House of Japan.
“The symposium is one of the premier forums in the dialogue on financial issues between Japan and the U.S.,” said HLS Professor Hal S. Scott, director of the Program on International Financial Systems. “This year’s Symposium focused on the competitiveness of the financial systems of Japan and the U.S. and the role that these two countries play in the world financial markets. In addition, the participants focused on the impact that China will have on Japan and the U.S.”
U.S. Assistant Secretary of Treasury for International Affairs Randall Quarles, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Timothy Geithner and Japanese Vice Minister of Finance for International Affairs Hiroshi Watanabe delivered keynote addresses. Ronald Logue, chairman and CEO of State Street, also delivered an address to the symposium.
The symposium attracted approximately 100 invited guests, about half from Japan and half from the United States. These participants were composed of senior government officials, politicians and their advisers, financial firm leaders, lawyers and consultants, scholars and a few media representatives.
The Harvard Law School Program on International Financial Systems was founded in 1986. It was established to conduct research linking law, economics and finance. For more than fifteen years the program has published books, organized symposia and provided advice to emerging market economies.