Japan should hold more of its foreign reserves in emerging market assets to diversify its $1.2 trillion pool, a ruling party lawmaker said.
"We should invest in not just the dollar and the euro, but our trading partners like China, South Korea and Thailand," Tsutomu Okubo, deputy head of the Democratic Party of Japan's policy committee, said in an interview in his office Tuesday. "Holding Asian currencies like the yuan, the won and the Thai baht is natural if our trade with Asia is going to grow."
Japan's reserves, the world's second-largest after China, have jumped 14 percent since August 2010 to $1.219 trillion after repeated government-ordered yen sales to stem surges in the currency.