Premier Naoto Kan has announced that the Japanese authorities are ready to take foreign exchange action again. The aim is to keep down the price of the yen. Yesterday, for the first time in 4 years, Japan sold approximately 2,100 billion yen (23 billion dollars), which weakened the currency. Kan said that “rapid fluctuations in the yen could discourage our businesses from investing in Japan and thus cause them to relocate production, which would impact badly on our jobs market and spark deflation”. He went on to say “we will act decisively and right away, if necessary”.