Japanese Prime Minister Kan: Will Watch Yen Rates Carefully

TOKYO (Dow Jones)--Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Saturday that he will "carefully monitor" the yen's exchange rates, according to local media reports.

Kan also said he will "communicate with [Bank of Japan Gov. Masaaki Shirakawa] in a way that's necessary," though the prime minister added that he has "not decided what I will do and when" with the central bank chief, according to a Jiji Press report.

Kan's comments come amid speculation that he may call for an emergency meeting with Shirakawa next week to discuss ways to tackle the yen's recent strength, which is threatening Japan's export-driven economic recovery.

Many traders expect the bank could face greater political calls for further monetary easing if the yen's uptrend continues.

http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tnks/Nni20100814D14JF546.htm

 

Higher yen is good for Japanese consumers. This stupid prime minister wants Japanese to be poor, to save the profits of exporters, unless he is making his talk to fool foreign leaders that he is doing something about it when he may be pleased with the yen.

 

National Strategy Minister Satoshi Arai said the government needs to work with the central bank to tackle gains in the yen that risk derailing Japan’s export-led recovery.

 

intervention is a nothing more than a paper tiger. The only way this would be successful is a coordinated effort, and I don't see US or EU jumping on this wagon to revalue the yen.

 

Seems, we are prepared for the next leg down in USD/JPY. Despite a lot of government talk nothing happened so far.

Let´s see whether it will move again below 85.00.

 

yeah intevention worked so well for the SNB.

 

Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda repeated today that he’s “closely watching” currency markets, and Trade Minister Masayuki Naoshima said yesterday that the yen needs to drop about 6 percent to help exporters.

Good to know...

 

Only if you're a Japanese consumer with a butt-load of JPY and you're not worried about being unemployed.

 

The Japanese government has stepped up pressure on the Bank of Japan to take measures to try to stem the rise of the yen amid concern that the economic recovery is running out of steam.

Two cabinet ministers on Friday called on the central bank to tackle the yen, which last week surged to a 15-year high of Y84.72 against the US dollar.

Earlier this week, the Japanese government said the economy had grown by only a seasonally adjusted 0.4 per cent in the second quarter, a sharp drop from the 4.4 per cent growth rate for the first quarter. The poor performance meant that China overtook Japan in economic size in the second quarter.

Koichiro Genba, minister of state for civil service reform, blamed the yen’s appreciation, which he said was delaying the economic recovery, on the Bank of Japan’s failure to take additional monetary easing measures.

“The cause [of the yen’s rise] is the difference in approach between the US Federal Reserve Board and the Bank of Japan” towards their respective currencies, said Mr Genba.

The Fed last week announced additional easing measures as it downgraded its outlook for the US economy. However, the Japanese central bank has failed to respond to hopes for further easing.

“I think there are a diverse range of monetary measures the [Bank of Japan] could implement,” Mr Genba said.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/24b4fb66-ac50-11df-a532-00144feabdc0.html

The pressure is rising on BOJ...

 

Maybe what the BOJ should do is try to strengthen JPY until it approaches zero and then buy hard assets in the US, like the entire state of Hawaii and most of California.