By Makiko Yamazaki and Takaya Yamaguchi
TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan’s government appointed financial regulation expert Atsushi Mimura on Friday as its top currency diplomat, replacing Masato Kanda who battled sharp yen declines this year with the biggest currency intervention on record.
The appointment, made as part of the Ministry of Finance’s personnel reshuffle, comes as markets remain on high alert for signs of yen-buying intervention by Tokyo with the currency at 38-year lows below 161 to the dollar.
Currently head of the ministry’s international bureau, the 57-year-old Mimura will become vice finance minister for international affairs – a post that oversees Japan’s currency policy and coordinates economic policy with other countries.
The appointment will take effect on July 31 after the meeting of the Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors in Rio de Janeiro from July 25.
Having spent nearly a third of his 35-year government career at Japan’s banking regulator, Mimura has expertise and international ties in the area of financial regulation.
During his three-year stint at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Mimura worked with Mario Draghi to set up the Financial Stability Board in the midst of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis to reform financial regulation and supervision.
At the finance ministry, he worked on the revision to the law over the Japan Bank for International Cooperation last year to expand the scope of the state-owned bank and make foreign companies key to Japan’s supply chains eligible for loans from the bank.
Mimura was also part of a government team that briefed foreign investors on the 2020 revisions to foreign ownership rules to dispel the notion that tighter rules were meant to discourage foreign investment in Japan.
Little, however, is known on Mimura’s stance on currency policy.
Mimura takes over from Kanda who, during his three-year tenure, actively jawboned markets to combat sharp yen falls he described were driven by speculators.
Kanda oversaw a bout of yen-buying intervention in late April and early May, in which Japan spent $62 billion to prop up the sagging currency.
A weaker yen is a boon for Japanese exporters, but a headache for policymakers as it increases import costs, adds to inflationary pressures and squeezes households.
