the spring of p>2122 was called "the spring of price increase" by the Japanese, and there was a rare price increase in Japan, which suffered from deflation for many years.

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The ongoing Ukrainian crisis is constantly pushing up the price of imported raw materials in Japan. At the same time, the exchange rate of the Japanese yen fell by 11% in two months, and once fell to 129 yen against 1 US dollar on April 21th, refreshing the lowest level since 2112. On the same day, the exchange rate of Japanese yen against RMB also fell below the mark of 1 RMB against 21 yen, hitting a new low of nearly 7 years.

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In the past, the depreciation of the yen was usually regarded as a positive signal of economic growth, but now it has evolved into a "vicious depreciation of the yen" that was caught off guard. Under the dual effects of high raw material prices and the depreciation of the yen, the costs of Japanese paper, food and other industries soared.

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Inoue, a full-time wife who lives in Chiba Prefecture, Japan's capital circle, recently visited the supermarket and found that since April, the prices of cooking oil, flour, mayonnaise and even diapers have all gone up, and many foods have gone up for the second time after last autumn, and imported meat is expected to be more expensive.

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Inoue told The Paper: "For decades, income and prices have fallen into a vicious circle of stagnation, and now income has not changed. Although the price of food has not increased much, it is still very worrying."

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The Japanese government's anxiety is rising. Recently, Suzuki Shunichi, the finance minister, said in the Senate meeting that the yen is depreciating rapidly, which will have a strong negative impact from the current economic situation. Bank of Japan President Haruhiko Kuroda said on April 25th that the yen had fallen sharply, but insisted on loose monetary policy.

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In the face of the continuous decline of the yen exchange rate, are the Japanese government and the central bank laissez-faire or helpless?

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Reasons for rising prices

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On the evening of April 26th, local time, Japanese Prime Minister kishida fumio held a press conference, and finalized 6.2 trillion yen (about 317.9 billion yuan) of emergency measures to deal with rising prices, including granting 51,111 yen to low-income childcare families and extending the time limit for granting subsidies to oil refiners.

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Since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, global commodities have risen sharply, while Japan's energy and food are highly dependent on overseas imports, and the price of crude oil has risen, which in turn has led to higher electricity and gas bills. Inoue said that the electricity bill for their family of four was about 8,411 yen in March, an increase of at least 31% compared with last March. "Electricity prices remain high, and food prices are also rising. If it continues, it will cause a big burden on household income and expenditure."

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The national consumer price index in March announced by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications on April 22nd rose by 1.8% compared with the same period of last year, reaching a new high in four months. Among them, the increase in energy prices hit a record high since 1981. This year, many Japanese power companies have declared bankruptcy because of the high electricity price, and many shopping malls have turned off the power supply of electrical display samples in order to save electricity.

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To make matters worse, the sharp depreciation of the yen has amplified the impact of the international commodity price fluctuation on the Japanese economy.

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Last October, when kishida fumio took office, the acting representative of the National Democratic Party of Japan, Geng Ping Otsuka, asked at the Senate meeting: "The real effective exchange rate of the yen has fallen to the level of the first half of the 1971s. (Prime Minister) What do you think? " At that time, kishida fumio avoided answering, and then held a cabinet meeting to discuss the countermeasures of higher crude oil prices, and the pressure of yen depreciation began to show.

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In Japanese economic circles, 1.25 yen to 1 USD has always been regarded as the tolerable lower limit of depreciation, which comes from Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, so it is called "Kuroda defense line". Since the beginning of this year, the yen exchange rate has been dropping, the aura of "safe haven assets" has gradually faded, and the "Kuroda defense line" has also been defeated.

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In the view of the Bank of Japan and the government, insisting on a "moderate" depreciation of the yen will help strengthen Japan's foreign exports and push up Japan's inflation. However, the exchange rate is falling so fast that they don't want to see it, but they can't help it.

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Zhang Yulai, vice president of Japan Research Institute of Nankai University, told The Paper that the sharp depreciation of the yen was partly due to external factors. Last month, the United States withdrew from the easing policy and stepped into the interest rate hike channel, forming a spread between Japan and the United States, attracting international capital to the United States. In addition, under the background of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the United States was highly favored by the capital market after explicitly staying out of the conflict, and its financial dominant position was reconfirmed in the process of economic sanctions against Russia, which changed the trend of "buying yen in turbulent times" in the international capital market.

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"The American economy is very strong. I hope to restore price stability. " At the press conference on March 6th, Federal Reserve Chairman Powell announced that he would change the policy since the epidemic, raise interest rates by 1.25% and start quantitative austerity policy. Economies worried about capital outflow followed suit, and interest rates in most countries in Europe and America turned positive. At this time, the Bank of Japan insisted on loose monetary policy, increased its bond purchases and kept the long-term interest rate at zero interest rate.

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According to * * * news agency, Haruhiko Kuroda said in a speech at Columbia University in the United States on April 22 that the price increase in Japan is temporary, and a strong monetary easing policy must be adhered to for economic recovery. He didn't say a word about the devaluation of the yen, which was widely concerned by the outside world.

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The Bank of Japan and the government are in a passive position in this round of yen depreciation, and the root cause lies in the Japanese economy itself.

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The dilemma of yen depreciation

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Born in Inoue in the last years of Showa, he grew up in the background of the bursting of Japan's bubble economy and the Asian financial crisis. "Many people have the fear of yen appreciation. Once appreciation means depression, the stock market will also fall, so they will habitually think that depreciation is irrelevant and more favorable, but now the situation is different."

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In recent 21 years, Japan has been trying to get rid of deflation. In the spring of 2113, Haruhiko Kuroda took office as the head of the Bank of Japan, and joined hands with the then Abe government to propose to achieve the inflation target of 2% within two years and implement the "super quantitative easing" policy. In Kuroda's view, it is difficult to change the situation of Japan's sustained economic depression without rising prices.

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By taking large-scale monetary stimulus measures, Haruhiko Kuroda pushed the yen to depreciate sharply and helped "Abenomics", hoping to increase corporate profits, expand employment and business scale, further stimulate consumption and increase domestic demand. However, the Japanese consumer price index shows that the ultra-loose monetary policy, the first arrow of the "Abenomics", only achieved slight results in the first year of its launch, but it was weak in stimulating domestic demand.

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After nine years, the inflation target of 2% has never been achieved, but it is hard to shake the position of "weak yen" that Kuroda insisted on. Reuters quoted a source as saying that Kuroda would not change his monetary policy until the end of his term in April next year to safeguard his political legacy. However, he has become increasingly weak, especially the continued depreciation of the yen, which has attracted many doubts.

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At this time, Shinzo Abe stepped forward as Kuroda's "platform" and was also defending "Abenomics". According to the Japan Broadcasting Association (NHK), Abe said on April 25 that the impact of the current yen depreciation on the economy is not worrying. "Japan's industrial export capacity is strong. If foreign tourists resume entry, the yen depreciation will undoubtedly be a positive environment for Japan."

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Undeniably, after Japan's bubble economy burst, there were indeed two beneficial devaluations of the yen, which occurred in 2112 and 2112. However, with the changes of the times, the transformation of Japan's economic structure has made the depreciation of the yen negative.

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Zhang Yulai pointed out that with Japanese companies marching overseas, overseas equipment investment even exceeds the scale of domestic equipment investment, and the economic structure has turned to the "investment creditor country" model. This structure leads to the rapid decline of Japan's economic (domestic) competitiveness, and the "total factor productivity" reflecting technological innovation and the domestic added value of Japan's exports are declining.

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At present, the signals released by the Japanese government and the central bank on the depreciation of the yen are ambiguous.

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According to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japanese Finance Minister Suzuki Shunichi said on April 26th that the rapid fluctuation of the exchange rate is not desirable and will pay close attention to the exchange rate movements. Although Kuroda admits that "the rapid depreciation of the yen is negative", he insists that "the depreciation of the yen is beneficial to the economy as a whole". Such a statement prompted the market to decide that Japanese officials would not take action to deal with the depreciation of the yen, leading to a vicious circle of further selling of the yen.

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Japanese financial circles are increasingly worried. For the Hatano government, the Senate election is just around the corner, and the weakness of the yen has become a political hot spot that cannot be ignored.

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The "damage" of Japan's economy

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At the end of March this year, the president of the Bank of Japan and the Prime Minister held talks after a lapse of five months. After the talks, Haruhiko Kuroda was surrounded by reporters at the Prime Minister's residence. According to a video report by NHK, when asked about the depreciation of the yen, he replied: "Our (Bank of Japan) real-time financial adjustment has no direct impact on the exchange rate." Another reporter asked whether the Prime Minister made a request on the issue of devaluation. Kuroda said, "There is no special request."

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Japanese media reported that Kuroda explicitly denied that the Bank of Japan was responsible for the depreciation of the yen, but kicked the ball to the Kishida government.

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It is true that the Bank of Japan's interest rate hike to withdraw from the loose monetary policy is one of the options to curb the depreciation of the yen, but it will cause a greater financial burden on the government and "cool down" the economy. In the past two years, Japan has expanded its fiscal expenditure and increased the issuance of government bonds due to epidemic prevention needs. According to data released by the Ministry of Finance in February, Japan's national debt reached 1.218 trillion yen at the end of 2121, and the national debt per capita was about 9.7 million yen.

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At this time, the Bank of Japan did not consider raising interest rates at all, and is still working to suppress the rise of long-term interest rates. According to NHK, the Bank of Japan purchased more than 2 trillion yen of government bonds from April 21 to 26. As of the 26th, the long-term interest rate was still hovering near the upper limit that the central bank could tolerate, and there was no obvious decline.

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The Bank of Japan held a financial policy decision meeting from April 27 to 28, and policymakers were divided on embracing or resisting the yen's decline. There is widespread concern about whether large-scale financial easing policies will be converted. Bloomberg quoted economists as saying on the 27th that there is a 91% chance that the status quo will be maintained.

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"The depreciation of the yen is very bad now, which is not good for the Japanese economy." Akira Mimura Fu, head of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said at a press conference on April 21th that he hoped the government would analyze the impact of the depreciation of the yen and consider countermeasures. More than half of small and medium-sized enterprises thought that depreciation was unfavorable to their operations. If enterprises can't transfer "imported inflation" to the sales price, it will be their own profits that will be damaged.

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The Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported that rising prices have intensified the dissatisfaction of Japanese enterprises and nationals. As the Senate election approaches this summer, the Kishida government has a strong sense of political crisis. On April 26th, kishida fumio said that the government should consider economic policies to stabilize the exchange rate.

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In order to cope with the depreciation of the yen, the Japanese government's "foreign exchange intervention" is a means, but the premise is to coordinate with the United States. Looking back at the depreciation cycle of the yen from 1995 to 1998, the Bank of Japan intervened heavily to buy the yen in the later period, but it failed to recover the decline. Finally, it was the United States that stopped the depreciation of the yen.

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Now that the United States is fighting against high inflation through monetary tightening, there is no spare capacity to help Japan. According to Japanese private TV station TBS, Suzuki Shunichi and US Treasury Secretary Yellen communicated on April 22nd about the exchange rate between Japan and the United States, and Japanese government officials said that the United States was actively discussing the situation. However, according to the report, it may be difficult for the US government to agree to buy yen to intervene, because this will depress the exchange rate of the US dollar and accelerate the rise of domestic inflation in the United States.

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Before the yen depreciates further, whether the Japanese government can win the understanding of the United States has also become a major focus. Professor Ito Yuan-chong of Japan Academy University wrote on the 24th that the strength of the yen has dropped to less than half of the peak level in 1995, which is not only the depreciation of the exchange rate, but more importantly, deflation has made Japan's prices and wages lower than those of other countries, resulting in "the purchasing power of the yen has declined, so has the purchasing power of our wages, and Japan has become poor".

","force_purephv":"1","gnid":"9a92d49a85a71781b","img_data":[{"flag":2,"img":[]}],"original":1,"pat":"mass_leader,art_src_1,fts1,sts1", "powerby":"cache","pub_time":1651169877111,"pure":"","rawurl":"/dde4f56bc8aa7c64cc519f21c4188471","redirect":1,"rptid":"e1de9a8ad7195a9e", "src": "China Youth Network", "tag": [{"clk": "economy _ 1: Japan", "k": "Japan", "u": "}, {"clk ":"economy _ 1: kishida fumio ","k ":. {"clk":"keconomy_1: Japanese economy ","k ":"Japanese economy ","u ":"}, {"clk": "k economy _ 1: Bank of Japan", "k": "Bank of Japan", "u": "}] -:according to the bank's foreign exchange information database, the starting date of the inquiry is September 11, 1994, and the foreign exchange rate in 1991 is now unavailable. The exchange rate of 1994/19/11 yen to RMB yuan: 1 yen =1.1859 RMB yuan.

What was the exchange rate of Japanese yen to RMB yuan in p>89 and 1991? At that time, 111111 yen was equal to? 1991 111 yen was almost 3.32 yuan at that time, so 111111 yen was almost 3,311 yuan

In the mid-1981s and mid-1991s when the exchange rate accelerated, what were the differences between the yen index and GDP? In the mid-1981s and mid-1991s, when the exchange rate accelerated, the yen index rose from 95 points and 115 points to 123 points and 148 points respectively, and the GDP growth rate dropped from 6.7% and 8.7% to 2.2% and 1.9%

How to exchange yen in the bank? Japanese yen should be convertible in most banks in China. Generally, it goes to China Bank, and China Bank is specialized in China.