【英语国际】日本干预汇市 逆国际潮流而动？

Japan broke international convention and became the first of the world's largest, advanced economies in several years to intervene in currency markets Wednesday.

The question is: Will it work in a world where currency trading is now a $4 trillion dollar affair?

Unilateral currency intervention, once a common tool among industrialized economies, fell out of favor in recent years, amid a perception that it was unfair to trading partners and ineffective over the long term.

'That philosophy of intervention changed because of free-market principles, but also because the foreign-exchange markets are so much bigger ... You need a lot more firepower to move a major currency these days,' says Sean Callow, currency strategist with Westpac in Sydney.

Daily trading in the dollar-yen market is now $568 billion, a 73% increase from when Japan last intervened in 2004, according to the Bank for International Settlements. Around the world, about $4 trillion of currencies change hands overall daily.

The only other developed country to intervene recently is Switzerland. To fight the euro's fall against the Swiss franc, the Swiss National Bank bought about EUR90 billion (about $110.73 billion) before pulling back on serious intervention in June. Despite the intervention, the euro has fallen 12% against the franc this year.

It isn't clear exactly how much yen Japan injected into currency markets Wednesday, but it will presumably need more than last time.

When Japan intervened over a 15-month period to March 2004, it pumped 35 trillion yen into markets, or about $320 billion in 2003 exchange rates. In the end, intervention changed little, with the yen trading roughly where it did at the start of the operation.

Hampering its efforts, Japan acted alone Wednesday, rather than in concert with other central banks.

'To make this move stick, it needs the U.S. to play, as well as the Chinese,' says Denis Gould, AXA Investment Managers' director of investment for Asia and Japan. That is unlikely, he says.

'Nobody will do it in a coordinated manner because nobody wants their currency going up,' Mr. Gould says. 'Everywhere in the world there are problems with economic growth.'

The Group of Seven richest economies, of which Japan is a member, have generally agreed in recent years that direct intervention should be used only to counter alarmingly rapid currency climbs, particularly those stemming from speculative attacks. The yen's recent climb doesn't fit that bill.

That means that if the Bank of Japan keeps on selling yen on the Ministry of Finance's behalf, U.S. officials and others may start issuing carefully worded criticisms on the Japanese move, making tense international relations on the currency markets even frostier.

Some market watchers say they believe that the intervention, even on this scale, will dodge international criticism, particularly given the yen's surge over recent months to a series of 15-year highs against the dollar. With the Japanese economy looking shaky and exports crucial to its revival, many have seen intervention as the Ministry of Finance's only option, even despite pressure on China to let the yuan rise and fall in line with market forces.


Among developed economies, Japan is highly reliant on exports to drive its growth and therefore its exchange rate has an outsize impact on the economy there.

Before 2004, Japan conducted several currency operations to boost its export sector. In April 1995, when the yen hit a high of 79.75 against the dollar, Japan intervened. Within a month the yen had weakened 8% and by the end of 1995 it had weakened 23%. A U.S. economic recovery at the time reinforced the dollar's rebound against the yen.

Government intervention in currency markets was a cornerstone of economic policy in the 1980s. Two international pacts, the Plaza Accord and the Louvre Accord, ushered in massive, multilateral currency management to adjust the levels of the dollar and the yen in an attempt to promote stability among the world's largest trading powers.

The ascendancy of free-market thinking in economic-policy circles led to the promotion of letting exchange rates float free of government intervention.

Japan's move, while unlikely to trigger copycats among major economies, comes amid a pullback from the international consensus that governments shouldn't try to tame capital flows.

This year, the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank separately raised the idea that capital controls are useful for some economies dealing with massive inflows of capital that can lead to asset bubbles and inflation. Such controls could include taxes on investors taking money in or out of a country or minimum periods that investors would be required to keep money in a particular market.

'There is a significant risk we are going toward a phase in which international trade relationships are going to be a little harder than they used to be. If this is the case, you'll probably have changes in exchange-rate policy around the world and changes in capital controls,' says Luca Silipo, chief Asia economist for French investment bank Natixis in Hong Kong.

Over the medium term, Japan 'could eventually be successful,' in weakening the yen, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch currency strategist Tomoko Fujii wrote Wednesday.

Ms. Fujii warns, however, that another round of money-pumping operations by the Federal Reserve is likely to send the dollar down against the yen. She maintained her view that the yen will breach its all-time high against the dollar sometime this year.

Some see Japan's unilateral intervention as a lost cause and say that Tokyo should pressure its biggest trading partner to help. China has used its currency reserves to buy $27 billion in Japanese bonds and other securities this year, underpinning the yen's rise, and raising concerns in Japan.

'Japan should push China to stop buying [Japanese government bonds]--it has a major psychological impact on the market for yen strength,' said John Vail, chief global strategist at Nikko Asset Management in Japan. 'That would be a lot more effective than trying to push the forex market.'

Bloomberg News日本财务大臣野田佳彦(Yoshihiko Noda)周三回答记者提问。
日本周三打破国际惯例，成为数年来第一个干预外汇市场的大型发达经济体。

问题在于，在世界外汇市场日成交量已达4万亿美元的情况下，干预起得了作用吗？

单边汇率干预曾是工化业国家的一个常用工具，但在近几年却不再受到欢迎，因为人们认为这对贸易伙伴不公平，长远来看也是没有效果的。

西太平洋银行(Westpac)驻悉尼外汇策略师卡罗(Sean Callow)说，干预理念发生变化是因为自由市场的原则，同时也是因为外汇市场比原来大多了……如今要撼动某个主要货币，那得需要更多的火力。

据国际清算银行(Bank for International Settlements)数据，目前美元兑日圆市场的日成交量是5,680亿美元，和2004年日本上次干预时比起来增加了73%。在整个世界，每天外汇市场的成交量约为4万亿美元。

近期采取过干预措施的其他发达国家只有瑞士。为遏制欧元对瑞士法郎的跌势，瑞士国家银行(Swiss National Bank，央行)收购了900亿欧元（约合1,107.3亿美元），到6月份才不再大力干预。尽管采取了这种干预措施，今年以来欧元对瑞士法郎仍然下跌了12%。

周三日本向外汇市场注入了多少日圆尚不可知，但可以想见需要比上次投入更多。

在截至2004年3月份的15个月干预期内，日本向市场注入35万亿日圆，以2003年的汇率计算约合3,200亿美元。到最后，这场干预并没有带来什么改变，日圆汇率跟干预之初的水平相去不远。

本周三日本是单独行动，没有和其他央行联手，这对干预的效果是不利的。

安盛投资管理公司(AXA Investment Managers)亚洲与日本投资总监古尔德(Denis Gould)说，要让此举产生持久的效果，日本需要美国和中国参与，但那是不太可能的。

古尔德说，没人会联手这么干，因为没有谁希望自己的货币升值；世界各地的经济增长都存在问题。

由富裕经济体组成、包括日本在内的七国集团(Group of Seven)近几年大体上达成一致，只有在货币出现令人恐慌的升值、特别是因为投机性攻击而出现这种升值时，才应该采取直接干预措施。日圆最近的升值并不符合这种要求。

所以，如果日本央行(Bank of Japan)继续代表财务省抛售日圆，美国和其他国家的官员可能就会开始对日本的行动提出精心措辞的批评，让有关外汇市场的紧张国际关系更加迷雾重重。

一些市场观察人士说，尽管干预规模如此之大，日本还是会逃过国际上的批评，特别是考虑到近几个月日圆不断升值，对美元连创15年以来新高。尽管中国还面临着让人民币随市场力量起伏的压力，但在日本经济岌岌可危而出口对其重振至关重要的情况下，很多人此前已经认为采取干预措施是财务省的唯一选项。

在发达经济体中，日本高度依赖出口来拉动经济增长，因此对日本而言，其汇率对经济有着相当大的影响。

在2004年之前，日本为了提振出口行业采取了数次汇率行动。1995年4月当日圆兑美元触及79.75的高点时，日本出手干预。一个月内日圆下跌了8%，到当年年底时日圆跌幅已达23%。当时美国经济的复苏也加大了美元兑日圆的反弹力度。

在上世纪八十年代，政府干预汇市是经济政策的里程碑式事件。《广场协议》和《卢浮宫协议》这两项国际协定引入了大规模的多边汇率管理，以通过调整美元和日圆的汇率来促进世界贸易大国间的稳定。

由于在经济政策界自由市场观点占据着支配地位，因此这也推动汇率在没有政府干预的情况下自由浮动。

尽管日本的举措可能不会引来主要经济体的效仿，但它做出此举之时正值关于政府不应力图干预资本流动这一国际性共识出现反复之际。

国际货币基金组织(International Monetary Fund)和亚洲开发银行(Asian Development Bank)今年各自都提出了一种观点，即资本控制对一些应对大规模资本流入的经济体来说是有用的，这种大规模的资本流入将引发资产泡沫和通货膨胀。此类资本控制可以包括对将资金投入或撤出某国的投资者征税，或是对投资者在某个特定市场持有资金的时间设定最短期限。

法国投资银行Natixis驻香港的首席亚洲经济师斯利珀(Luca Silipo)说，我们正面临进入一个新阶段的风险，那时国际贸易关系将没有以往融洽。如果事情果真如此，世界各国的汇率政策和资本控制可能会发生改变。

美国银行-美林(Bank of America-Merrill Lynch)的外汇策略师Tomoko Fujii周三写道，从中期来看，日本压低日圆汇率的举动最终将获得成功。

不过Fujii警告说，美联储(Federal Reserve)新一轮的注资行动也许会令美元兑日圆走低。她仍然认为，日圆兑美元汇率将在今年某个时候突破历史高点。

有人将日本的单边干预看成是一个注定要失败的举动，他们说东京方面应该向其最大的贸易伙伴施压，以此来寻求帮助。中国今年已动用外汇储备购买了270亿美元的日本债券和其他证券，从而加强了日圆的涨势，并引发了日本的担忧。

日本日兴资产管理有限公司(Nikko Asset Management)首席全球策略师韦尔(John Vail)说，日本应该要求中国停止买入（日本国债），它对市场上的强势日圆有着重要的心理影响，这种方法要比试图干预汇市有效得多。