In an interview with Reuters, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was asked whether the Bank of Japan should consider consecutive rate hikes to address the yen's depreciation. He said he expected Governor Ueda to take "appropriate action" with Prime Minister Takaichi's support. He also referred to the possibility of US-Japan talks during the G20 meeting in Asheville, North Carolina.
In an interview with Reuters, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he had been asked whether the Bank of Japan should consider continued rate hikes to address the yen's depreciation, and that he expressed the expectation that Governor Kazuo Ueda (植田 和男) would take "appropriate action" with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's (高市 早苗) support.
The remarks were made in Asheville, where the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting will be held. It was also disclosed that Bessent is expected to hold talks with Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama (片山さつき) and Ueda during the meeting.
In the New York market, the yen briefly traded in the ¥160-per-dollar range on the 28th. The move was driven in part by expectations of an early rate hike by the Federal Reserve, and marked the first time the yen had reached the ¥160 range since the end of July, when Japan and the United States intervened jointly to buy yen.