In the interview, Mr. Kaifu said: "I myself have been making efforts in our country to make it possible to resume the yen loans.

He also signed an agreement for 3 hundred million yen loan from the Bank of Japan.

The selling of dollars to buy yen and pay off the yen loans helped send the yen soaring 29 percent against the dollar in two months.

Physical construction on the new 4.3 billion-peso airport, funded in part by an 8.2-billion yen loan, commenced in August 2004.

Most of Japan's aid to Burma was in the form of yen loans and grants.

A 22,800 million yen loan (approximately equivalent to $158,800,000) was secured from Japan in early December 1989.

Asia's boom has famously collapsed, and those yen loans that looked like can't-miss free money are now huge unpaid debts.

To pay off their yen loans, traders had to sell American bonds, pushing both bond prices and the value of the dollar lower.

In the 1990's, Japanese companies spent 104.5 billion yen ($942 million) to develop parts for the Boeing 777, with a 60 billion yen loan from the government.

The expansion was largely funded by a 30 billion yen loan from Japan and 500-million-euro (USD 625 million) loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB).