Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said Monday that Japan and the United States jointly intervened in the currency market to stem the decline of the yen, which was at its lowest level in nearly 40 years.
“On Friday, July 31 (…) the Ministry of Finance of Japan, in coordination with the United States Treasury Department, intervened in the Chinese market to buy yen,” Katayama said in a statement.
The head of Japanese finance added that the measure, the amount of which she did not reveal, was adopted “in response to the recent excessive volatility and disorderly movements of the yen.”
“We will not hesitate to carry out new coordinated interventions in the future,” said Katayama, after highlighting the “fluid communication” between Tokyo and Washington on this issue. In a subsequent press conference, the Minister of Finance highlighted that this is the first joint monetary intervention between the US and Japan since 1998.
US endorsement of Takaichi
For his part, the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, Scott Bessent, stated on the social network
Bessent also gave a boost to the fiscal policies of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, whose fiscal expansionism has sparked doubts in bond markets and caused a weakening of the yen.
The sharp rises in the yen last Friday and Saturday, which led the Japanese currency to sit in the average range of 157 units per dollar one day compared to the more than 163 at which it had been trading after weeks of falls, had unleashed speculation of a joint intervention.
The Takaichi government and the Bank of Japan (BoJ) carried out interventions in the currency market between April and May, which caused an appreciation of the Japanese currency from 160 units per dollar to 155 during the first days of May.
