Yesterday’s G7-shambles was only the beginning.
First, there was the statement co-signed, apparently, by all G7 nations, which appeared to support Japan’s efforts to depress the Yen. Accordingly, the Yen fell slightly against the dollar.
Then, headlines on Bloomberg — attributed to “G7 OFFICAL” — suggested that that interpretation was exactly backwards. The statement was supposed to be a condemnation of Japan’s alleged currency manipulation. And when that happened, the Yen soared:
Then a third official — British, this time, because it was us who put together the joint statement and the Bank of England which published it — said that no, it wasn’t meant to be interpreted as “about an individual country or currency”, and could we all just stop fretting please? Needless to say, that didn’t go down brilliantly either.
The whole thing led to one of the most telling updates to a news headline I’ve ever seen, as the FT‘s “G7 attempts to defuse currency tensions” became “G7 fails to defuse currency tensions“.
The whole move was an attempt to take a lead as the G7 governments arrive in Moscow for the G20 meeting this weekend, as Mark Carney, the next governor of the Bank of England, explained to the Canadian House of Commons yesterday:
We signed a statement, the minister of finance and I, … which reaffirmed the commitment of the G7 to ensure that monetary policy is focused on domestic objectives, not on targeting exchange rates. And we hold the members of the G7 to that long-standing position. It is extremely important.
It’s important that we as a G7 go in united and forcefully to the G20 to enlarge that commitment as quickly as possible amongst the major emerging economies in the G20, some of whom entirely ascribe to flexible exchange rates and are supportive, others who have a lot of work to do.
That seems less and less likely to be the case now. The goal for the G7 has receded from presenting a united face in order to convince developing economies of the benefits of free exchange rates, to just trying to get its own house in order.
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