Japan's foreign reserve hits record high in Aug
Reuters, Tokyo
Japan's external reserves hit a record high of $827.954 billion at the end of August, the Finance Mini{try said on Tuesday, adding tha| a stronger euro and other factors were behind the rise, not currency intervention on this occasion.The foreign reserves rose by $8.751 billion from the end of July due to interest income on foreign securities, rises in the value of US bonds and the strengthening of the euro against the dollar, which pushed up the value of euro-denominated assets in dollar terms, a Finance Ministry official said. "As we already announced, we did not intervene in the market .... so those three reasons are the main causes of the growth in foreign reserves," he told reporters. Japan foreign reserves, the world's largest since October 1999, have often increased in recent times because of dollar-buying intervention by the Japanese authorities to curb the yen's rise. However, the MOF has not intervened in the currency market since March 16. The last record high dates from the end of March when the reserves stood at $826.577 billion. Since intervention stopped, the zeserves have been hovering below $820 billion. The Japanese authorities spent an annual record of about 20 trillion yen ($182 billion) on intervention in calendar 2003.
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