WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said on Friday that there was not a "one-size-fits-all" approach for G20 members to boost their economic growth, saying that each country had to decide for itself how to apply structural reforms and monetary and fiscal policy.
He said, however, that it was important for both China and Japan to pursue structural reforms to their economies - for China to reduce excess industrial capacity and for Japan to restructure agriculture and other sectors of its economy.
"Japan has to be careful not to slip into another economic decline, which means they are going to have to be careful about how they phase the timing of future tax increases and whether they offset that with spending in their economy so that it doesn’t create fiscal drag," Lew said.
Ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal would help Japan reform agriculture and other sectors, he added.