Environment for Appropriate Response Ready over Forex: Japan’s Suzuki

Tokyo, April 23 (Jiji Press)–Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said Tuesday that the environment for an appropriate response over the foreign exchange market has become ready.

“I think it can be said that an environment conducive to an appropriate response (to the weak yen) is now in place,” Suzuki said at a meeting of the House of Councillors’ Committee on Financial Affairs.

He was responding to a question from an opposition lawmaker who asked the minister whether Japan’s currency market intervention to stanch excessive exchange rate movements would be accepted, following a recent series of international meetings in Washington, including a gathering of finance ministers of Japan, the United States and South Korea held Wednesday last week.

Suzuki made the remark in connection with a joint statement adopted at the three-way meeting. The statement said the three countries will “continue to consult closely on foreign exchange market developments…while acknowledging serious concerns” of Japan and South Korea about the recent sharp depreciation of the yen and the won.

At the parliamentary committee meeting, the minister stopped short of mentioning the details of the “appropriate response.”

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]