Newly designed 1 000 yen, 5 000 yen and 10 000 yen Japanese banknotes with embedded anti-counterfeiting technologies went into circulation on Monday.
”I believe the new banknotes will lift people’s spirits and help contribute to forming a new dynamic Japanese economic society,” Bank of Japan Governor Toshihiko Fukui told reporters after a ceremony marking the new issuance, the first in two decades.
When visiting the central bank on Monday, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said: ”I don’t know to what extent the circulation of the new bills will have in economic effects, but I hope it will help put the economy on a firm recovery path.”
Japan has been seeing an increasing number of forged banknotes, with 14 000 fake bills found in the first six months of this year, up from 800 reported in 1998, according to the National Police Agency.
A hologram used in the new notes is designed to make their colour and design pattern change if they are seen from different angles, making forgery difficult, according to the central bank.
Vertical bars in the new notes will also become visible when the bills are held up to light, the Bank of Japan said.
The 1 000-yen note features the image of Hideyo Noguchi, an internationally renowned bacteriologist (1876-1928), and the 5 000-yen note the image of Ichiyo Higuchi, a female novelist and poet (1872-96). Higuchi is considered Japan’s first female commercial novelist.
The 10 000-yen banknote continues to use the image of Yukichi Fukuzawa (1835-1901), a Meiji-era educator who founded Japan’s honourable Keio University, of which Prime Minister Koizumi is a graduate.
The old banknotes are expected to be out of circulation in about two years’ time, but will remain valid even after being replaced, the central bank said. — Sapa-DPA