Word: yen
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...boasts a European market share of 1.7%, now on par with VW's Skoda brand. And Toyota's Yaris, packed with features and options for under $17,000 in most markets, is a bargain compared to VW's $18,000 Golf. The euro's strength against the yen is also bolstering Asian automakers' profit margins, putting pressure on higher-cost manufacturers. VW's competition is also heating up in China, now the world's hottest car market. The firm's market share has fallen from 60% to under 40% in only two years as more than 100 local and foreign...
...weak yen makes Japanese products cheaper and therefore more competitive abroad. The yen's relationship to the dollar is particularly important, because the U.S. is a primary customer base for heavyweight Japanese companies, such as Sony and Toyota. Under former Finance Minister Shiokawa, the government spent in just the first 8 1/2 months of the year the unprecedented equivalent of $110 billion to buy dollars on the open market, in an attempt to keep the yen from climbing against a weakening greenback...
...uncertain that Japan can continue to prop up its exporters through currency intervention. Immediately after the G-7 meeting, the yen appreciated to 111 per dollar, its strongest level in nearly three years. Since 115 yen per dollar, a much weaker level, was widely assumed to be Shiokawa's target, currency traders are now waiting for Tanigaki, the new Finance Minister, to show his hand. Although he has already said that exchange rates "should stably reflect fundamentals" and that he would "take action to make sure that happens," Tanigaki hasn't yet demonstrated how much, if at all, he will...
...soothe the concerns of other industrialized nations and to demonstrate that Japan is committed to free trade. On the other, exchange rates have a direct and measurable impact on exporters?and Japan's recovery is still fragile. Credit Suisse First Boston estimates that every 10% appreciation in the yen could cut recurring profits in the manufacturing sector by 10% and reduce annual GDP growth by nearly a third of a percentage point...
...That Japan must play this currency game at all suggests that the country's economy is still in disarray and that the growth a weak-yen policy has helped to produce does not provide the foundation of a lasting revival. As economist Richard Katz writes in a recent issue of his newsletter, the Oriental Economist, "If Japan's economy were basically healthy, then most of the recent economic indicators would justifiably be taken as the classic signs of an economy in recovery." But Japan's economy is not basically healthy, he argues, at least not yet. Although there have been...