Reuters: Japanese lawmakers will offer digital yen

Members of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party plan to offer the country the release of its owndigital currency.

About 70 party lawmakers believe a digital yen is needed to counter the looming launches of the Libra stablecoin and China's digital currency, according to a Reuters report.

According to Deputy Foreign MinisterNorihiro Nakayama, an initiative to keep Japan at the forefront of innovative technology, will be a joint project between the government and the private sector.

“China is moving towards issuing a digital yuan, so we would like to propose measures to counter such attempts,” — Nakayama stated.

The first step in achieving this goal will bestudy of the concept of state cryptocurrency of Japan. The ruling party is led by former Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Akira Amari, who is reported to present a cryptocurrency plan for the government next month.

This initiative contradicts the opinion of the centralbank of the country. Last July, a Bank of Japan official ruled out the central bank's use of cryptocurrencies because it would require the country to stop using cash. In addition, in December, the head of the Central Bank, Haruhiko Kuroda, stated that there is no demand for state digital currency in the country.

However, the country's Central Bank appears tocontinues to keep his finger on the pulse. Earlier this week, the central banks of Canada, the UK, Japan, Sweden and Switzerland, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) created a task force to jointly study government-owned digital currencies.

In addition, according to Reuters, the Prime MinisterShinzo Abe (Shinzo Abe) said in parliament that the government will work with the Bank of Japan to study digital currencies and ways to improve the effectiveness of the yen as a means of settling settlements.

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