NARITA, Chiba Pref. (Kyodo) Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii reiterated Friday he will not discuss the yen's appreciation against the U.S. dollar at a weekend meeting of finance chiefs from the Group of Seven industrialized countries in Turkey.
"I will not touch" the issue, Fujii told reporters at Narita airport shortly before leaving for the half-day G-7 meeting Saturday in Istanbul.
He said it would be preferable if the currency markets were stable and reflected "the actual conditions of the economy."
"That's what it boils down to. Nothing more," Fujii said, indicating he had nothing else to say on foreign-exchange issues at the G-7 meeting. The meeting will be attended by finance ministers and central bank governors from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.
The yen hit a nine-month high against the dollar earlier this week.
Traders have shown a strong appetite for yen partly because Fujii has made ambiguous remarks on foreign-exchange issues since becoming finance chief Sept. 16. Some of those comments were mistaken as reluctance to intervene in the currency markets to stem the yen's rise.