Speaking just hours before Clinton was scheduled to arrive in Tokyo with a message for Japan that it must do more to help the world avoid a recession, Obuchi said he would tell Clinton that his country's financial future was finally looking up.

"I would like to convey to president Clinton Japan's strong resolve to return turn the economy to positive growth in fiscal 1999," Obuchi told a meeting of the economic strategic committee, an advisory panel to the prime minister.

He said he would explain to Clinton that a new stimulus package totalling 24 trillion yen ($196 billion) announced last Monday would help to pull Japan out of its recession.

Obuchi said although the situation of Asian economies remained "severe" he believed they had reached the bottom.

Obuchi's comments appeared to be a response tocomments by Clinton on his departure from Washington that he would press Japan for swift economic reforms.

Thousands of police have spread out through the Japanese capital for Clinton's visit, his first since early 1996, when the Japanese economy had not yet teetered over the financial edge.

Speaking at the start of a five-day trip that also includes South Korea and Guam, Clinton sought to quiet critics miffed that he cancelled plans to attend an Asia-Pacific summit in Malaysia so he could remain in Washington to manage a showdown with Iraq.

"From the time our administration took office in 1993, we have believed it vital to the future of the United States to look not only to the West, but... to the East as well, and to forge a strong Asia-Pacific community," said Clinton, who originally planned to spend 10 days in the region.

Clinton has been criticised for not attending the two-day economic summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum that met in Kuala Lumpur.

Instead, he sent vicepresident Al Gore, who created an uproar when he hailed the "brave people" staging street protests against Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.

"In Japan and Korea, I will work for further (economic) progress," Clinton said. "Nothing is more important to restoring stability and growth in Asia than efforts to restart Japan's economy."

Clinton said that in talks with Obuchi he would discuss "how Japan can promptly and effectively implement its commitment to banking reform, stimulate consumer demand and growth, deregulate the economic sectors, and open its markets to fair trade".

Underscoring the potential for underlying trade tension to flare up again, Japanese data issued on Thursday showed its merchandise trade surplus with the United States making another solid rise, up 32 per cent in October from a year earlier.

Clinton said the crisis over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, which almost led to US military strikes last weekend, should not mask equally serious worries over Korea.

"If Iraq'sweapons of mass destruction have dominated recent headlines we must be no less concerned by North Korea's weapons activities," he said.

He said those activities included Pyongyang's "provocative missile programme and developments that could call into question its commitment to freeze and dismantle its nuclear weapons effort".

Clinton said his trip would "give us an opportunity to address this critical issue, where China has also played a very constructive role".

Clinton also will discuss with Obuchi speeding up Japanese legislation that would allow Tokyo to take on a bigger security burden in Asia, including around North Korea.

The issue took on new urgency after the state department said on Wednesday that North Korea had refused a US demand to inspect an underground construction site that could be used to revive its nuclear programme.

The highest-level US mission to visit the secretive Stalinist state since 1994, led by ambassador Charles Kartman, left Pyongyang on Wednesday after two days oftalks.

"I cannot say that we were satisfied with the response we received... We did not get access on terms we find acceptable. There are wide gaps in our approach to this problem," said state department spokesman James Rubin.

Washington has expressed doubts over North Korea's compliance with a 1994 pact that calls for Pyongyang to freeze and eventually dismantle its existing nuclear programme in return for safer nuclear reactors built by a global consortium.