Tokyo: Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama on Tuesday voiced concern about the recent rapid weakening of the yen against the US dollar to its lowest level in about nine months. "We are concerned by the extremely one-sided and sudden movements we have seen recently. The government is closely monitoring excessive fluctuations and disorderly movements in the foreign exchange market, including speculative trends," Katayama told a press conference.
According to Kuwait News Agency, currency traders are worried that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's economic package, to be approved by the Cabinet soon, would be large in scale and worsen the nation's fiscal health. The yen traded above 180 yen per euro for the first time since the euro was introduced in 1999, and fell against the dollar to the nine-month low of 155 yen range this week.