A Japanese Finance Minister has called for the country to impose a tax on financial transactions to curb market volatility, also dubbed the ‘Robin Hood tax’.

Naoki Minezaki said market volatility threatened economic growth.

Bloomberg reports him saying::

“We’re seeing speculative funds flowing carelessly around the world — one day in stocks and real estate other times in oil and grains — and this is destroying the lives of ordinary people,” Minezaki wrote in an e-mail to supporters and reporters on Feb. 15. “We have to implement the Tobin Tax as part of international solidarity,” he said, adding that the levy could also boost revenue.

Japan is now fourth in the seven richest countries on the planet to endorse the Tobin, a.k.a. Robin Hood tax. It joins the leaders of Britain, France and Germany.

Owen Tudor at the ToUChstone blog welcomed the news, adding:

Four out of seven. Er, that’s a majority isn’t it? Of course, the US administration is yet to be convinced, but we are getting closer to the tipping point.For those who don’t like decisions being made by the richest countries in the world, the G7 does actually have traction on this issue, because most financial transactions do take place in those richest countries.

Over 70% of the value of global transactions are in just three: Britain, Germany and the USA. And there isn’t actually a mechanism to introduce a global tax, so in reality what a global tax means is the co-ordinated introduction of taxes by the countries where the financial transactions take place.

Japan’s move is likely to put pressure on the US to move in the same direction.

Reader comments

1. Liberal Conspiracy

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3. TUCGlobal

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4. Robin Green

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5. Robin Hood

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11. Jon Rosling

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14. Hanna Thomas

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16. Emily Kendrick

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17. SocioLingo Africa

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18. Sam Bumby

    Japan joins the call for a robin hood tax http://tinyurl.com/yldk8pd Hopefully they can start properly taxing bankers soon… #libcon

19. The FT considers Tobin Taxes « Freethinking Economist

    [...] would like to point out that – unlike what the crowing TUC and LibCon seem to think – this is NOT a Robin Hood tax.  Brazil’s 2% tax is about 40 times’ what Robin [...]

20. Tim Evans

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24. Oxfam Scotland

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25. uberVU - social comments

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26. Martin Bentley

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31. Helen Shipley

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32. The Robin Hood Tax » A roundup of the campaign so far - a tiny tax on bankers to tackle poverty and climate change here and abroad.

    [...] is growing for the tax among international politicians – two days ago, Japanese Vice Finance Minister Naoki Minezaki joined Brown, Merkel and Sarkozy in calling for a tax on financial [...]

33. sciamachy

    Japan joins UK, France etc in support of #RobinHood http://is.gd/9atxJ Kinda starts to chip away at the objections

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