By Duncan Mackay

Tokyo financial districtApril 2 - Tokyo's position as one of the main financial centres in the world has been underlined by the publication of the newly-released Global Finance Centres Index (GFCI) 2013, which puts the Japanese capital in sixth place, a climb of one place from last year.


The results underscore Tokyo's massive financial strength, one of the key underpinnings of its promise to deliver a world-class experience if its bid to host the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics is successful, Japanese officials claimed.

Making Tokyo's figures even more impressive is that its two rivals bidding for 2020, Madrid and Istanbul, slipped a place each from last year to 51st and 57th respectively in a rankings list headed by London, the hosts of last year's Olympics and Paralympics.

"I am very pleased that Japan's outstanding financial capabilities have been evaluated so highly by the Global Financial Centres Index," said Tsunekazu Takeda, President of both the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) and Tokyo 2020.

"Tokyo's massive financial base anchors the rock-solid foundation of our plan to host an
amazing 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

"Backed by a massive $4.5 billion (£2.8 billion/€3.3 billion) fund, we are ready to deliver."

Tsunekazu Takeda in front of Tokyo 2020 logoTokyo 2020 President Tsunekazu Takeda wants people to realise the financial strength of the city's bid to host the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics

The Index is a ranking of the competitiveness of financial centres based on over 26,000 financial centre assessments from an online questionnaire together with over 80 indices from organisations such as the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Economist Intelligence Unit.

The ranking, first published in March 2007 by the Z/Yen Group and updated twice a year, is an aggregate of indices from five key areas: people, business environment, market access, infrastructure and general competitiveness.

As the financial hub of the world's third-largest economy, Tokyo has a gross domestic production amounting to $1.5 billion (£992 million/€1.2 billion), larger than any urban centre on the globe and nearly big enough to rank among the world's top 10 national economies.

Some consolation for Istanbul is that the authors rank it among the top ten centres in the world  "likely to become more significant".

They also noted that "Istanbul continues to progress, up by 25 points, but loses one place".

To read the full report pdfclick here.

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