New | IMF says yen’s rise is now at fair value and yuan is moving in line with fundamentals

The International Monetary Fund said the yen’s surge this year has brought the Japanese currency closer to its fair value, in an assessment that contrasts with expressions of concern by the country’s policy makers about the exchange rate.

The Chinese yuan, by comparison, is still in line with fundamentals despite a decline over the past year, the IMF said in its annual External Sector Report, released Wednesday in Washington.

The report assesses the current-account balances and exchange rates in 29 economies, with the broader finding that “global imbalances increased moderately in 2015” amid uneven recoveries in advanced economies, falling commodity prices and tighter external financing conditions in emerging markets.

While coordinated action to support growth can help address such issues, the IMF stopped short of calling for such concerted policies on exchange rates, saying that the situation is different from the one that prevailed ahead of the 1985 Plaza Accord to weaken the dollar.

“When we talk about global collective actions, we’re talking about on the broader policy front,” not exchange rates, Luis Cubeddu, a division chief in the IMF’s research department, said on a conference call with reporters. “Exchange rates and current accounts are not so out of whack.”