Yen's value seen surging to 95 against dollar by next March
The strengthening of the Japanese yen is expected to continue into early next year, rising to 95 yen to the U.S. dollar in March, the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) said yesterday.
The KOTRA, citing a group of Japanese economic think tanks, said that the growing expectations for Japan's economic recovery and rising sales of U.S. dollars may push up the yen's value below 100 even before the beginning of the new year.
As a result, Korea's auto, shipbuilding, petrochemicals, steel and electronics firms, which are in direct competition with Japanese rivals in overseas markets, will continue to benefit from the strong yen, the KOTRA said.
According to the KOTRA report, Dai-ichi Kangyo Bank forecast that the yen will continue to remain strong due to Tokyo's market interventions and institutions' sales of foreign-currency assets, staying in the 102-105 yen range by the year's end and rising to 95 yen by the end of next March.
Dai-ichi Insurance said that the simultaneous weakening of the U.S. dollar and euro will push up the yen's value to 97-102 in the first quarter of 2000. Nihongyoko Bank issued a more cautious forecast, saying that the yen's value will rise to 95 by the year's end before making a further ascent to 90 by the end of next March.
Tokyo-Mitsubishi Bank estimated the yen to stay in the 100-103 range by the end of next March. But Nomura Securities' think tank predicted that the yen will weaken to 102-108 by the end of next March after hovering around 100-105 this year, explaining that major economic indexes, including consumption, will not turn out better than expected. (YCM)
Updated: 12/01/1999 |
