The Finance Ministry is set to boost its war chest for currency market intervention in fiscal 2004 by 40 trillion yen, a move that would bring the total for such use to 140 trillion yen, ministry sources said Thursday.
The increase will be included in the fiscal 2004 budget, a government draft of which will be completed next week, the sources said.
The step would enable the ministry to issue an additional 40 trillion yen in financing bills to procure funds for currency market intervention in the fiscal year beginning April 1.
This would be in addition to the 20 trillion yen to be included in the supplementary budget for the current fiscal year. Given the 79 trillion yen cap already in place, the overall total for fiscal 2004 would be around 140 trillion yen.
The government has carried out massive yen-selling intervention this year, spending more than 17.80 trillion yen since January to combat the yen's appreciation against the dollar.