Eisuke Sakakibara, former Japan’s top currency official, believes that Japanese currency that has already added 7.9% against the greenback may climb further to the all-time maximum versus dollar.

According to the economist, the slump of the pair USD/JPY isn’t the result of yen’s strengthening but the one of dollar’s weakness as US currency’s rate is affected by the lack of confidence in American economic growth prospects.

Japanese monetary authorities didn’t make up a strategy how to hold the climbing of the national currency. Sakakibara expects that the companies will feel the negative impact of yen’s appreciation and stock market’s decline around the end of this year. Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Bank of Japan’s Governor Masaaki Shirakawa will meet this week to discuss the situation.

Survey by Gaitame.com Research Institute Ltd. demonstrated that more than a third of Japan’s margin traders think policy makers will intervene to weaken the yen if it strengthens past the 15-year maximum.

The last time when Japan intervened to the currency market was in March 2004 when the yen was around 109 per dollar.



Chart. Daily USD/JPY

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