05/31/2002
Dow Jones News Services
(Copyright © 2002 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)---The Bank of Japan intervened in foreign-exchange markets in New York as well as Tokyo and "apparently" London, Kyodo news agency reported Friday.
In a dispatch from Tokyo, the agency said the Bank of Japan was apparently worried that a creeping rise of the yen would hamper Japanese exports and sold yen for the dollar Friday in a bid to arrest a steady rise in the Japanese currency.
According to the report, financial sources said the Japanese central bank stepped into the foreign exchange market first in Tokyo and later in New York, and apparently also in London.
The effect of the market intervention in Tokyo was short-lived, as the pressure on the U.S. currency remained unabated, Kyodo said.
"We have taken appropriate action today in the foreign exchange market as a follow-up to last week's operations," Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa said after the Bank of Japan conducted the dollar-buying operation, the agency reported.
"Recent movements in foreign exchange rates have been too rapid," he said, according to the report.
<This should help gold end of day> |
