Japan Unveils $100 Billion to Fight Surging Yen as Moody’s Lowers Rating

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...ment-credit-rating-to-aa3-outlook-stable.html

The government will release foreign-exchange reserves to the state-run Japan Bank for International Cooperation for funding to aid exporters and spur purchases overseas, Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda told reporters in Tokyo today. The announcement came hours after Moody’s Investors Service lowered the nation’s debt rating one step to Aa3, with a stable outlook.

The ministry will bolster monitoring of the currency market, requiring major financial institutions to disclose trading positions through Sept. 30, Noda said. About 30 organizations will be subject to the procedures, a ministry official told reporters in Tokyo on condition of anonymity.

“It does seem as though they’re trying everything but intervention now,” Sean Callow, a senior currency strategist at Westpac Banking Corp. in Sydney, told Bloomberg Television. The case for “big scale intervention in the near term” isn’t as compelling as it was for Switzerland when that nation moved to weaken the franc, because Japan’s currency is proving less volatile, he said.

The Bank of Japan applauded the Finance Ministry’s announcement, saying in a statement that the measures would “contribute to the stability” of currency markets. The one- year funding program through JBIC is intended to encourage “the private sector to exchange yen-denominated funds to foreign currencies by supporting exports by small and mid-sized companies, securing energy resources and helping Japanese companies to purchase foreign businesses,” Noda said.