by Satoshi Sugiyama and Makiko Yamazaki
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese leaders sought to calm concerns about sharp swings in the country’s financial markets on Tuesday, with the prime minister calling for calm and top finance officials calling an emergency meeting to discuss the situation after a “Black Monday”.
Officials from Japan’s Finance Ministry, Financial Services Agency and the Bank of Japan (BoJ) held the tripartite meeting Tuesday afternoon, said Atsushi Mimura, a senior foreign exchange official, in a sign of close coordination between the government and the central bank.
“The government and the BoJ agreed that it is important to monitor developments in domestic and international economic and financial markets with a sense of urgency while calmly assessing what is happening,” Atsushi Mimura told reporters after the meeting.
Such a meeting is typically held during times of market turbulence, partly to show that authorities are prepared to act. The last such meeting was held on March 27, following a sharp depreciation of the yen.
Global stock markets fell sharply on Monday, amplifying a sell-off in assets that began last week, before regaining some ground on Tuesday.
The Nikkei index of the Tokyo Stock Exchange thus rebounded by 10.23% on Tuesday to 34,675.46, in reaction to the relief of investors, after a fall of 12.4% on Monday, the biggest in percentage terms since the crash of “Black Monday” in 1987.
Atsushi Mimura declined to comment on the factors behind the stock drop, but stressed that the finance ministry, the financial services agency and the BoJ agreed that Japan’s economy would continue to recover gradually.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida urged caution, saying it was important to make a calm judgment of the market. He offered an upbeat outlook for the world’s fourth-largest economy, citing a rise in inflation-adjusted real wages in June, the first in more than two years.
“We recognize that the Japanese economy continues to make a solid transition to a new stage,” Fumio Kishida told reporters from Hiroshima.
Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said the government would monitor and analyze movements in financial markets and work closely with relevant authorities, including the BoJ.
“It is important to achieve resilient economic growth while responding to the changes that are coming our way,” he said.
(Reporting by Satoshi Sugiyama and Makiko Yamazaki; by Claude Chendjou; editing by Kate Entringer)
Copyright © 2024 Thomson Reuters
I have over 8 years of experience working in the news industry. I have worked as a reporter, editor, and now managing editor at 247 News Agency. I am responsible for the day-to-day operations of the news website and overseeing all of the content that is published. I also write a column for the website, covering mostly market news.
