Civil Affairs Handbook, Japan Section 3: Money and Exchange

The following report is divided into three principal sections, dealing with (A) background information, (B) money and credit institutions in1941, and (C) wartime developments. Section A reviews briefly the development of currency and financial institutions in the Japanese Empire, emphasizing factors necessary for an understanding of the present system and events which may find a parallel during the period following the present war. Section B gives a detailed description of the monetary and financial system as it existed immediately before the outbreak of the Pacific War, at the middle of 1941. In its essential elements this system has been maintained unchanged throughout the course of the war. The inadequacy of information and statistics for the war period, moreover, makes it necessary in many cases to go back to the pre-war years to obtain reliable data. Section C reviews the changes which have taken place in the monetary and financial system during the war period.