Eurozone crisis biggest threat to world economy: Japan PM

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda urged the eurozone to get to grips quickly with its debt crisis on Saturday, branding it the biggest threat to the global economy.

"It is indeed the major source of risks for the global economy," Noda, speaking via videolink from Tokyo, told the Davos forum in Switzerland.

"Within the eurozone there should be major steps to alleviate the concerns of the international community and the markets."

Noda said Japan "stands ready to support the European efforts as much as possible", recalling that it contributed to the European Financial Stability Facility, a warchest designed to forestall a default in struggling economies.

The prime minister warned that European nations would face a long struggle to regain market credibility. Japan lost its triple A credit rating in 2001 and has still to win it back.

"The forces of global financial markets assail nations relentlessly," he said. "Once the credibility of a nation is lost there is no way to get it back easily. The European debt crisis is a clear case in point."

He was speaking the day after the credit rating agency Fitch cut the ratings of five eurozone members, including Italy and Spain, citing their poor finances and vulnerability to sharp turns in market sentiment.

France, the eurozone's second largest economy, lost its gold-plated triple A rating earlier two weeks ago.