When finance chiefs and central bankers from the Group of Seven countries gather this week at a hot springs resort in northern Japan, the official agenda has them focusing on ways to revitalize global growth and crack down on cross-border tax evasion.
Left off the discussion list is one of the most pressing concerns for the host nation: how to counter a 10 percent surge in the yen that’s squeezing an economy unable to escape a cycle of expansion and contraction. Cries for sympathy are likely to fall on deaf ears, given the tailwind corporate Japan got in the first years of the Abe administration from the currency’s sharp depreciation.
Source: Bloomberg (17 May 2016)