Tanigaki says no change in view on fixing imbalances

ST PETERSBURG, Russia, June 10 (Reuters) Leading industrial countries have not changed their minds on how to fix global imbalances, Japanese Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki said on Saturday.

The Group of Eight finance chiefs said that global growth was strong and gradually becoming more broadly based, but warned of downside risks including high and volatile energy prices and widening global imbalances. They also reiterated their commitment to address imbalances.

''We reconfirmed the thinking of the Group of Seven,'' he told a news conference after a meeting of G8 finance leaders in St.

Petersburg. ''There were no particular changes to that.'' Addressing global imbalances, namely the huge U.S. current account deficit, Japan needed to improve its fiscal soundness. The United States had to pursue fiscal consolidation while Europe and Russia had to speed up structural reforms, he said.

That reiterated a G7 statement in April, which also called for currency appreciation in emerging Asian countries that triggered a sharp rise in the yen.

Tokyo spent a record trillion to stem the yen's rise in the 15 months to March 2004, but has refrained from intervening in the currency market since then.

At a meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow on Friday, Tanigaki said he told his counterpart that rapid moves in exchange rates were undesirable.

STOCKS FALL On a recent global decline in stock markets, Tanigaki said they did not necessarily stem from structural changes in the global economy, and he felt his counterparts shared that view.

He added International Monetary Fund Managing Director Rodrigo Rato told the G8 that the recent stock market fall was a correction from overheating markets.

Tanigaki also called on his G8 counterparts to boost dialogue between oil producers and consumers to help stabilise high oil prices.

He also called for greater transparency of market data, the need for improving energy efficiency and the importance of oil reserves.

Resource-scarce Japan imports almost all of its oil, but efforts to improve efficiency and use other energy resources have so far capped any inflationary impact from rising energy prices.

REUTERS MP KN1945