Tokyo, Nov. 12 (Jiji Press)--Japan's top currency diplomat on Thursday warned against a rapid fall of the yen, saying "it is still too early to forget the memory of this summer" when currency authorities stepped into the market.
"We have a strong impression that the moves in the last few days have been too rapid," Atsushi Mimura, Japanese vice minister of finance for international affairs, told reporters, cautioning against speculative moves in the foreign exchange market apparently with the late July coordinated yen-buying intervention conducted by Japanese and U.S. authorities in mind.
The dollar rose close to 160 yen in the early hours of Thursday Japan time, marking the yen's lowest level in some two months, backed by expectations for an additional interest rate hike in the United States.
Following Mimura's remarks, however, the dollar fell back to around 159.50 yen amid market caution over possible intervention.
In late July, the dollar temporarily climbed close to 164 yen, a level unseen in some 39 years and eight months. This prompted the Japanese government and the Bank of Japan to conduct operations to purchase a total of over 15 trillion yen against the dollar on July 30-31 and Aug. 3. The yen-buying intervention on July 31 was the first concerted intervention by the two countries in about 28 years.
[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
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