Japan MOF's Mizoguchi says yen won't keep rising High Street Networking

30 August 2002, 08:33 Japan MOF's Mizoguchi says yen won't keep rising

/www.fxserver.com/TOKYO, Aug 30 - Senior Japanese Finance Ministry official Zembei Mizoguchi said on Friday that he did not expect the yen to continue strengthening given the relative strength of the U.S. economy compared with Japan's.
"I don't think we are in a situation where the yen will continue strengthening," Mizoguchi, head of the ministry's international bureau, told reporters.
"As we have been saying, our view remains the same that the U.S. economy is relatively firm."
Earlier in the day, the government said Japan's gross domestic product grew by an annualised rate of 1.9 percent in the second quarter. The data came on the heels of a revised U.S. growth figure for the same quarter of 1.1 percent.
But Mizoguchi said he was watching the global economy from a longer-term perspective.
The yen was trading around 118.03