Japan to compile report on quarterly disclosure requirements around spring

FILE PHOTO: Japan's Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki wearing a protective face mask delivers his policy speech during the start of an extraordinary session of the lower house of the parliament, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Tokyo, Japan December 6, 2021. REUTERS/Issei Kato

TOKYO (Reuters) -A Japanese government panel tasked with reviewing the need for quarterly corporate disclosure requirements aims to draw up a summary report this spring, Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said on Friday.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida wants to relax quarterly disclosure requirements for companies as part of his pledge to forge a "new capitalism", but implementation is expected to take years, complicating the outlook for one of his key promises.

Quarterly disclosures were made mandatory for firms in 2008 in a move to bring Japan's rules more in line with those of the United States, boosting the Tokyo market's appeal for overseas investors.

The report summary would lay out points that might need to be debated in more detail, setting the stage for a deeper discussion on the quarterly disclosure requirements at the panel, which is overseen by the Financial Services Agency (FSA).

"The revision of quarterly disclosures should be carefully discussed," Suzuki told reporters after a cabinet meeting.

"Under the new capitalism (plan) of the Kishida government, we think it's important for firms to emphasise long-term growth rather than short-term profitability and to manage benefits of not only shareholders but of various stakeholders, such as workers," Suzuki said.

The earliest the government can submit legislation to parliament to change the quarterly disclosure requirements will be in 2023, and the earliest date new rules can be applied is 2024, government officials told Reuters last October.

(Reporting by Daniel Leussink and Takaya Yamaguchi; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Kenneth Maxwell)

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