শেয়ারবাজার :::: সাপ্তাহিক ছুটি, পবিত্র শবে কদর ও পবিত্র ঈদুল ফিতর উপলক্ষে আগামী কাল শুক্রবার থেকে ঢাকা স্টক এক্সচেঞ্জ (ডিএসই) ও চট্টগ্রাম স্টক এক্সচেঞ্জে (সিএসই) ছুটি শুরু হচ্ছে। এ কারণে কাল থেকে ৩ সেপ্টেম্বর পর্যন্ত দুই স্টক এক্সচেঞ্জেই লেনদেন ও সব ধরনের দাপ্তরিক কার্যক্রম বন্ধ থাকবে।
ডিএসইর জনসংযোগ বিভাগ সূত্রে জানা যায়, ঈদ উপলক্ষে নয় দিনের ছুটি শেষে আগামী ৪ সেপ্টেম্বর থেকে যথারীতি লেনদেন ও দাপ্তরিক কার্যক্রম শুরু হবে।
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(১৬৮৯) Japan unveils new measures to deal with strong yen
A businessman looks at a share prices board in Tokyo yesterday.Photo: AFP
Japan's finance minister unveiled steps on Wednesday to combat the yen's rise, which threatens to undermine the recovery of companies following the March earthquake and tsunami. Yoshihiko Noda announced a $100 billion facility aimed at helping to weaken the yen after it last week hit a post-war high against the dollar on global economic fears, and imposed new rules on the disclosure of foreign exchange holdings by financial firms.
The package, which comes after Japan's repeated attempts to weaken the yen through currency market intervention including a unilateral move in August, left markets underwhelmed, with the unit rising against the dollar in
the wake of Noda's announcement.
The programme would encourage firms to exchange the Japanese currency for foreign denominated assets, with the one-year facility aimed at encouraging merger and acquisition activity to make the most of the strong unit.
"The move is expected to encourage firms to exchange yen-denominated assets into foreign currency," Noda told a news conference.
"The move is aimed at stabilising the forex market," he said, adding that the yen's recent moves were "one-sided".
Under the scheme, up to $100 billion will be used to finance Japanese firms' overseas merger activities and help with natural resources procurement, enabling them to secure funds at low costs.
The foreign currency funds will be released to the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, which will then collaborate with private banks to make loans.
The package will also see the Finance Ministry strengthen its monitoring of the foreign exchange markets, requiring dealers to report trading positions through to the end of September, said Noda.
The new disclosure rules require banks and major financial firms to report their foreign exchange balances twice daily. They are designed to help authorities monitor what they believe is excessive speculation in the market.
But markets were not too impressed, with the yen strengthening against the dollar on the news.
The greenback briefly fell to 76.53 yen at one point from 76.89 earlier, before sitting at 76.62 yen in later trade.
The new measures will not have much of an impact unless Japanese firms suddenly develop a large appetite for buying up foreign firms, Credit Agricole head FX strategist Mitul Kotecha said in a research note.
The strong yen has helped aid a flurry of deals with the likes of brewers Asahi and Kirin buying companies overseas in search of growth.
Wednesday's emergency credit facility "may do little" in practice; the requirement that dealers report their fixed positions may have a larger impact, Kotecha said.
"The FX market is a global market," Yuji Kameoka, managing director of foreign exchange at Daiwa Securities, told Dow Jones Newswires.
"It is hard to contain FX movement with only these measures."
The strong yen threatens to undermine Japan's faster-than-expected but fragile recovery from the March 11 disasters, amid increasing international scrutiny over its finances.
Earlier Wednesday ratings agency Moody's downgraded Japan's government debt rating one notch to Aa3, saying political instability and weak prospects for Japanese growth would make it difficult to tackle the industrialised world's biggest debt.