Japan boosts intervention fund for markets

Japan’s Finance Minister said yesterday that the country will secure an additional 15 trillion yen in funds it can use to intervene in currency markets, warning it will act against speculative moves on the yen.
Jun Azumi added that the finance ministry will require currency traders to report daily their trading positions for another three months beyond the end of September in a bid to deter speculative moves.
Japan will boost the size of its intervention funds by 15 trillion yen (USD 195.79 billion) to “flexibly” respond to the yen’s upward trend, Azumi said.
Azumi said the government will make necessary arrangement to raise intervention funds under the planned third extra budget for fiscal 2011.
The move would lift the accumulated total amount the government is allowed to borrow from the market to finance intervention to 165 trillion yen.
This means it would be able to raise an additional 46 trillion yen in the future if necessary because it has already used up 119 trillion of the total.