FOR once confusion has replaced consensus in Japan. The prime minister, the Governor of the Bank of Japan, the ministries and the press have all offered conflicting views on the impact of the yen's appreciation against the US dollar, sometimes even contradicting themselves.
Prime Minister Mr Kiichi Miyazawa said it would be ''troublesome if it [the yen] moves too wildly''.
A day or so earlier, Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Mr Yasushi Mieno, said the yen's rise was desirable in order to reduce the huge trade surplus.
But by Tuesday last week he was complaining that the rise was too fast to reflect the economic fundamentals.
The Ministry of Trade and Industry at first intimated that a rate of 118 yen per dollar would be acceptable, only for the Minister, Mr Yoshiro Mori, to backtrack on Tuesday: ''The yen's appreciation does not reflect Japan's real economic conditions. Japan's exporting industry may be badly affected.'' The press on the whole has argued in favour of a stronger yen. The Asahi Shimbun said on February 23 that Japan's stagnant domestic consumption could be stimulated if foreign exchange gains from the yen's appreciation are used to close the price gaps between Japan and the rest of the world.
The Tokyo Shimbun on February 22 stressed that while export-oriented industries should by now have learned to cope with an ever-stronger yen, cheaper imports of crude oil and natural gas would benefit industry as a whole.
With a partial recovery by the dollar from Monday's record low of 116.20 yen in New York, it is still too early for any tangible effects to have filtered through, although the signs are that the Group of Seven (G7) industrialised nations have agreed to let the yen settle at 118 per dollar.