Washington: Japan remains ready to intervene again in the foreign exchange market if necessary to deal with the yen’s rapid weakening, Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki has suggested.

Suzuki was speaking to Jiji Press after the dollar topped 146 yen for the first time in about 24 years on Wednesday morning Japan time.

“We are watching foreign exchange rates with a sense of tension as always,” said Suzuki, who is on a visit to the United States to attend a meeting of finance ministers and central bank chiefs from the Group of 20 advanced and emerging economies.

“(Foreign exchange rate) moves are important, and it’s not that we would take action if (the dollar-yen rate) reaches a certain level,” he stressed.

Japan carried out its first yen-buying, dollar-selling intervention in some 24 years on Sept. 22 to curb a sharp decline in the Japanese currency.

Although the dollar temporarily fell more than 5 yen from above 145.50 yen after the intervention, the yen has returned to a weakening trend against a backdrop of widening interest rate gaps between Japan and the United States.

JIJI Press