TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s top currency diplomat Masato Kanda said that authorities are “seriously concerned and on high alert” about the yen’s rapid decline, escalating warnings as the Japanese currency languished at its weakest level in almost forty years.
“It is generally accepted that the current weakness in the yen is not necessarily justified, therefore believed to be driven by speculators,” Kanda, the vice finance minister for international affairs, told reporters on Wednesday.
Japan’s currency touched 160.50 per dollar, the weakest since December 1986, creating market jitters over the possibility of another intervention to support the yen.
The market has widely seen 160 yen to the dollar as authorities’ line in the sand, even though Kanda and other government officials have repeatedly said they have no specific levels in mind on when to intervene.
Japan spent 9.8 trillion yen ($61.6 billion) intervening in the foreign exchange market in April and May, after the Japanese currency hit a 34-year low of 160.245 per dollar on April 29.
($1 = 159.9700 yen)
