Japan names new FX diplomat as yen hits 38-year low
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[June 28, 2024] By
Makiko Yamazaki and Satoshi Sugiyama
TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan appointed a new top foreign exchange diplomat on
Friday as the yen plumbed a 38-year low against the dollar, heightening
expectations of imminent market intervention by Tokyo to shore up the
battered currency.
Atsushi Mimura, a financial regulation veteran, replaces Masato Kanda,
who launched the biggest yen-buying intervention on record this year and
aggressively jawboned speculators against pushing down the Japanese
currency too much.
While the change is part of a regular personnel reshuffle conducted
every year, it comes as markets test Japan's resolve to arrest a renewed
fall in the yen that adds pain to households and companies by pushing up
import costs.
"Kanda appeared to be someone aggressive, given his comments that
authorities were on stand-by to intervene any time of the day," said
Hideo Kumano, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute,
adding that his departure could affect how Japan communicates its
currency policy.
"But it's hard to say until we see how his successor steers policy. All
in all, I don't think the big policy direction would change much."
Japanese officials reiterated their warnings as the yen slid past 161
per dollar on Friday, well below levels that triggered the last bout of
intervention in end-April and early May.
"Excessive volatility in the currency market is undesirable," Finance
minister Shunichi Suzuki told a news conference on Friday, adding that
authorities will "respond appropriately" to such moves.
He also said authorities were "deeply concerned" about the impact of the
yen's "rapid and one-sided" moves on the economy.
Japanese authorities are facing renewed pressure to stem sharp declines
in the yen as traders focus on the interest rate divergence between
Japan and the United States.
A weaker yen is a boon for Japanese exporters, but a headache for
policymakers as it increases import costs, adds to inflationary
pressures and squeezes households.
Under Kanda, who was FX diplomat for three years, Tokyo spent 9.8
trillion yen ($60.85 billion intervening in the foreign exchange market
at the end of April and early May, after the Japanese currency hit a
then 34-year low of 160.245 per dollar on April 29.
The yen hit 161.27 per dollar on Friday, its weakest since 1986, ahead
of a crucial U.S. inflation data due later in the day that could
heighten market volatility.
Market players see authorities' next line-in-the-sand as lying somewhere
around 164.50.
[to top of second column] |
A person walks past an electric screen displaying the current
Japanese Yen exchange rate against the U.S. dollar and Japan's
Nikkei share average as the yen declined to 38-year lows past 161
per dollar, outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan June 28, 2024.
REUTERS/Issei Kato
"If authorities want to prevent the yen from breaching that
threshold, they will probably step in before the currency hits that
level," said Daisaku Ueno, chief FX strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ
Morgan Stanley Securities.
NEW DIPLOMAT
Mimura's appointment will take effect on July 31 after the meeting
of the Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors in
Rio de Janeiro from July 25.
Little, however, is known about his stance on currency policy.
Currently head of the ministry's international bureau, the
57-year-old will become vice finance minister for international
affairs - a post that oversees Japan's currency policy and
coordinates economic policy with other countries.
Having spent nearly a third of his 35-year government career at
Japan's banking regulator, Mimura has expertise and international
ties in the area of financial regulation.
During his three-year stint at the Bank for International
Settlements in Basel, Mimura helped set up the Financial Stability
Board in the midst of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis to
reform financial regulation and supervision.
At the finance ministry, he worked on the revision to the law over
the Japan Bank for International Cooperation last year to expand the
scope of the state-owned bank and make foreign companies key to
Japan's supply chains eligible for loans from the bank.
Mimura was also part of a government team that briefed foreign
investors on the 2020 revisions to foreign ownership rules to dispel
the notion that tighter rules were meant to discourage foreign
investment in Japan.
($1 = 161.0600 yen)
(Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki and Satoshi Sugiyama; Additional
reporting by Takaya Yamaguchi; Writing by Leika Kihara; Editing by
Muralikumar Anantharaman and Sam Holmes)
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