Japan aims to soothe world traders’ fiscal anxiety with outreach in English

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s administration is seeking to assuage persistent market reservations about her management of fiscal policy by providing foreign investors with more information in English.

Market participants remain vigilant over how the administration will fund a planned sales tax cut and higher defense spending without expanding the nation’s enormous debt. 

Japan’s 10-year government bond yield topped 3% last month for the first time in three decades, with the speed of its ascent since Takaichi took office a year ago spooking many investors.

The need for better communication has grown with the increasing presence of foreign investors in Japan’s debt and currency markets. Foreign investors held 13% of Japanese Government Bonds (JGBs) at the end of June, up from about 8% in 2012.

The latest example of the English-language outreach came when Growth Strategy Minister Minoru Kiuchi gave a speech in English at a London Stock Exchange Group event in Tokyo on Thursday.

“When assessing Japan’s economy, I encourage you to look not at the image of Japan from the past, but a reality in Japan,” Kiuchi said in English. He emphasized that the administration is committed to both fiscal sustainability and growth-promoting investments and that it won’t engage in reckless spending.

Kiuchi underscored the importance of English communication for overseas market participants, while adding that he is personally more comfortable speaking in German.

Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama has made similar efforts. At a Bloomberg event in April, she explained foreign exchange market trends and other topics in English. In a September interview, she answered some questions in English without an interpreter.

Some market players abroad have taken note of the communication strategy.

“It is very helpful for us as market watchers as it removes the risk of missing the message or the tone, when simply translating,” said Stephen Spratt, a strategist at Societe Generale. “The new level of communication does make a lot of sense as in the bond market, foreigners now account for about half of the turnover.”

The Takaichi administration wants to ensure jitters about the fiscal situation won’t undermine its policy and political imperatives, said Kyle Rodda, senior analyst at Capital.com.

“Many, if not most of these market participants, are bond desks in the Anglosphere or English-speaking markets, so communicating in English is a necessity,” he said.

The need for clear communication with markets came to light when this year’s honebuto policy, an annual economic and fiscal blueprint approved by the cabinet, triggered market turmoil. Reports about initial drafts fueled concerns that the government was shifting toward a more expansionary stance that would speed up the rise in the nation’s long-term sovereign debt yields and weaken the yen.

The government revamped its English version of this year’s policy blueprint to improve readability, a change from last year’s dense summary, and released a new policy file for the honebuto in both Japanese and English.

The administration is considering providing English versions of documents from the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, a key venue for economic policy discussions, according to officials familiar with the matter. The Cabinet Office has also requested a quadrupling of its public relations budget to ¥13.7 billion ($86.8 million).

Overseas investors’ understanding of Japan’s economy and fiscal policy remains limited, according to Kazumasa Ishii, a strategist at UBS SuMi TRUST Wealth Management and a former Cabinet Office official. Some don’t even know that Japan has a tradition of compiling massive extra budgets year after year, basic knowledge among domestic investors, he said.

“It’s good that the government is making proactive efforts to communicate in English,” Ishii said. “But it would be even better if government officials could hold meetings with investors during overseas business trips so that they can establish a two-way dialogue.”