A senior Finance Ministry official said that a meeting between Masato Kanda, vice finance minister for international affairs, and Andy Baukol, acting Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, was held in Tokyo where recent currency moves were discussed.
The recent movements in the currency market were discussed for a "fair amount of time," Kanda was quoted as saying with the catalyst for talks being the U.S. dollar on Monday soaring above the 125-yen mark for the first time since August 2015 and remaining in the upper 123-yen zone for the majority of Tuesday.
The Bank of Japan (BOJ) opted to launch an emergency bond buying operation on Monday to curb rising 10-year Japanese government bond yields and counteract the widening policy gap between the U.S. Federal Reserve and the BOJ.
While the central bank here has committed to maintaining its aggressive monetary easing, the United States has been tightening policy, raising concerns of a widening interest rate gap between the pair.
Kanda said he and Baukol, along with finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of Seven countries and the Group of 20 (G20), which comprise 19 countries and the European Union, were essentially on the same page about rapid currency moves.
"Excess volatility and disorderly movements in exchange rates have adverse implications for economic and financial stability," Kanda said in a loosely veiled warning over the yen's recent rapid depreciation.
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