G7 finance ministers to meet in Tokyo on Feb 9

By Yoko Nishikawa

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan will host a meeting of Group of Seven finance chiefs on February 9 in Tokyo to discuss challenges facing the global economy including fragile markets and high oil prices, Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga said on Friday.

Japan takes over the presidency of the G7 group -- the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada -- from Germany in 2008 and will host the regular get-together of finance ministers and central bank governors.

"I expect the meeting to discuss financial market conditions centring on subprime mortgage loan problems, high oil prices and the world economy," Nukaga told a news conference.

"While basically confirming that the global economy is growing as a trend, it will be important to discuss what we can do to deal with some unstable factors," he added.

The Financial Stability Forum (FSF), a group of central banks, regulators and international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund, will submit an interim report on a broad reform agenda for the financial sector in the wake of the subprime crisis to the February G7 meeting, Nukaga added.

"We are asking for an interim report from the FSF regarding issues like hedge funds and subprime loan problems. I expect some reports on financial institutions' crisis management and rating agency issues and we will discuss them," he added.

The FSF is expected to propose concrete measures in April when the G7 financial chiefs are due to meet in Washington on the sidelines of the meeting of the IMF and the World Bank.

The rich nations' club last met in October in Washington where they turned up the heat on China to let its currency rise faster.