Japan’s ex-PM Abe says ‘wrong’ for BOJ to hike rates to stem yen falls

TOKYO – Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said it would be “clearly wrong” for the Bank of Japan to raise interest rates to curb further declines in the yen, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Monday.

“There’s no need to fret” about current yen levels, Abe was quoted as saying at a meeting of ruling party lawmakers.

Abe still yields strong influence in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as a proponent of big fiscal spending and aggressive monetary easing by the Bank of Japan.

Among the key goals of his “Abenomics” stimulus policies, deployed a decade ago, have been to reverse a yen spike that had hurt Japan’s export-reliant economy.

(Reporting by Leika Kihara; Editing by Edmund Blair)