Japan Interest Rates
Japan Interest Rate Hike Could Come as Soon as This Month
REPORTER:
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says he thinks Japan will move to further strengthen the yen, according to CNBC.
The Bank of Japan has been raising interest rates to tame yen volatility in global markets which Bessent says affects the American economy. Japan is also a major holder of US Treasury bonds at over a trillion US dollars in value. Bessent recently met with the Bank of Japan’s governor and Japan’s finance minister, calling for further rate hikes. Interest rates in Japan are now at their highest in more than three decades.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he believes Japan's government and central bank will take action that leads to a stronger yen, CNBC reported on Monday, signaling a strong chance of a Bank of Japan interest rate hike in September.
The remarks followed those by Bessent on Sunday, when he said he expects BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda to "do the right thing" on monetary policy to combat yen declines.
"I have information that the market doesn't have, and it's my belief that the Japanese government and the BOJ will do the things that will lead to a stronger yen," Bessent told CNBC in an interview during a Group of 20 finance leaders' gathering in Asheville, North Carolina.
When asked whether that meant raising interest rates, Bessent said: "I think the market's pricing that in now."
The yen gained against the dollar after Bessent's comments, which reinforced dominant market expectations the BOJ will raise rates at its next policy meeting in September.
The dollar stood at 159.75 yen on Monday, still close to the 160 mark that is seen as heightening the chance of yen-buying intervention.
Bessent met Ueda on Sunday and Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama on Monday, a senior U.S. Treasury Department official told Japanese public broadcaster NHK on Monday.
In the meetings, Bessent called for the need for further rate hikes and for Japan to clearly show markets how it would achieve fiscal sustainability, Erin Browne, undersecretary for international affairs at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, was quoted as saying in an interview with NHK. Reuters could not confirm that the meetings took place.
Sources have told Reuters the BOJ is set to raise rates as soon as its September 17-18 meeting and is considering hiking more aggressively than the current pace of roughly two times a year after that session.
Bessent's repeated calls for BOJ rate hikes have been among the factors that led markets to nearly fully price in the chance of a September hike. The Japanese central bank raised rates in June.
A hike next month, rather than in October, could fuel market bets the BOJ will raise rates once every quarter, some analysts said.
A weak yen has pushed up import prices and broader inflation, causing headaches for Japanese policymakers. It has been blamed in part on the slow pace of rate hikes by the BOJ, which has kept Japan's rate divergence with the U.S. wide.
Japan and the U.S. carried out a rare joint yen-buying intervention on July 31, signaling their determination to prevent a selloff in the yen and Japanese government bonds from spilling over into global markets.
While that action failed to put a sustained floor under the yen, Bessent told Reuters he did not see recent yen moves as disorderly, suggesting Washington was in no mood to join Tokyo for another foray into the market to prop up the currency.
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Japan Interest Rate Hike Likely
REPORTER:
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says he thinks Japan will move to strengthen the Yen, according to CNBC.
This comes amid some expectations the Bank of Japan will hike interest rates this month. Bessent met with the Bank of Japan’s governor on Sunday and Japan’s finance minister on Monday in which he called for further rate hikes. According to Reuters, it’s possible that during a meeting in mid-September, the Bank of Japan could decide on a more aggressive hiking pace than its current practice of around two hikes per year.
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