Japan will probably not gain support from the European Union in raising concerns over the dollar's recent decline during an upcoming meeting of Group of Seven finance chiefs, the man known as "Mr. Yen" said Tuesday.

And if these concerns are not raised in a G7 joint statement, the dollar will probably keep losing ground toward 100 yen, Eisuke Sakakibara, a former vice minister of finance for international affairs, said in an interview with The Japan Times.

Sakakibara added that unless the greenback shows signs of rebounding against the yen, Japan may be forced to tolerate a future decline in the U.S. currency, as it will not be able to maintain its strategy of intervention, in which it has sold trillions of yen for dollars, forever.

"It is true that Japan and the EU are concerned about the current weakness of the dollar. But the U.S. is quite satisfied with it," Sakakibara said.

A top finance ministry official also told reporters Tuesday that Japan and the EU share the same interests with regard to the dollar's recent fall and its impact on their economies.

On Tuesday in Tokyo, the dollar dipped below 106 yen and briefly hit its lowest rate in more than three years. The G7 meeting will take place Friday and Saturday in Boca Raton, Fla.

Sakakibara added that the U.S. would probably oppose any wording in the G7 statement that implies caution over the dollar's recent weakness.

Since any communique needs to be unanimously agreed upon before it can be issued, it is unlikely to send any clear message on current foreign-exchange movements, he said.

Sakakibara now serves as a professor at Keio University.

His aggressive currency intervention policies during his time as a top ministry official in the late 1990s earned him the nickname "Mr. Yen."

"The U.S., EU and Japan have different standpoints right now (on the currency market). This situation makes it difficult for them to reach an agreement and issue a strong communique," he said.

But experts say Japan's yen-selling intervention irritates U.S. manufacturers, who claim Japan is trying to devalue the yen artificially in order to boost the exports and profits of its own companies.

They say this intervention strategy also irks the European Central Bank, as the ECB has been unable to reach a consensus on currency intervention or on an easier monetary policy due to the different economic fundamentals of member countries.

In the absence of euro-selling intervention, the euro has risen against the dollar at a much sharper rate than the yen.

The G7 communique also will probably not criticize Japan's massive yen-selling intervention, as the Japanese delegation would strongly oppose any wording of this kind, Sakakibara said.

The government spent more than 20 trillion yen on yen-selling operations in 2003 — by far the biggest amount for a single year, Finance Ministry data show.

Japan also spent 7.15 trillion yen between Dec. 27 and Jan. 28, marking a record intervention figure for a single month, according to the Finance Ministry.

Sakakibara said the country will not be able to maintain the same level of intervention for a few more years, although these operations have had limited success in slowing the yen's rise against the dollar.

"Japanese financial authorities would eventually have to think about how to exit from such a strategy," he said.

Unless the greenback starts to rebound on factors such as stability in Iraq or expectations of monetary tightening, Japan will need to tolerate the dollar's weakness against the yen, Sakakibara said.

He added that if the U.S. currency hovers around 100 yen or dips briefly to 90 yen, this scenario would not deal a severe blow to the Japanese economy, as major manufacturers are increasingly immune to such currency movements after shifting their production plants overseas.