Dollar world's strongest currency: Japan ministar

Japan's finance minister said Tuesday that the dollar was still the world's strongest currency and it was natural for Tokyo to keep large stockpiles of the greenback. "It is clear that the dollar is still the world's strongest currency," Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii said at a press conference. "It is a matter of course that the country keeps its foreign exchange reserves in a strong currency." This in turn "also supports the dollar," he added. Japan has the world's second-largest forex reserves after China. Tokyo gives no breakdown of the currencies, but most are believed to be held in dollars as a result of past intervention to sell the yen against the greenback. Fujii said countries should not seek to artificially weaken their currencies to boost the competitiveness of their exports, but also reiterated that he was not necessarily in favour of a stronger yen.