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Japan’s currency interventions have been stealth operations in order to maximize the effects of its forays into the market, Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said on Tuesday, after the government spent a record $43 billion supporting the yen last month.
Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, however, reiterated the central bank’s resolve to keep interest rates ultra-low, indicating that the yen’s broad downtrend could continue.
Japanese officials remain tight-lipped on exactly when they intervened in the market in October. Full details of their actions will not be available until quarterly intervention data is published. The July-September data is expected to be released early this month.
“There are times when we announce intervention right after we do it and there are times when we don’t,” Suzuki told a news conference on Tuesday. “We are doing this to maximise effects to smoothe sharp currency fluctuations.”
The finance minister repeated his warning that authorities were closely watching market moves and would not tolerate “excessive currency moves driven by speculative trading”.
