TOKYO: The euro weakened in Asia on Wednesday as traders sold the unit over fears about the eurozone's fiscal woes and a dreary global economic outlook from the International Monetary Fund.
The European common currency was changing hands at $1.2871 in Tokyo morning trade against $1.2881 in New York late Tuesday, while it edged down to 100.73 yen from 100.77 yen.
The dollar was almost unchanged at 78.25 yen against 78.23 yen in US trade.
Worries about Spain and Greece's finances weighed on markets as European Union finance ministers met in Luxembourg while German Chancellor Angela Merkel went to Athens for talks on Tuesday.
The IMF added to concerns about the global economy, warning of a possible recession and cutting back its world economic growth forecast for this year to 3.3 percent, from its July estimate of 3.5 percent.
In a separate report, released Wednesday, the IMF said European policymakers must do more to tackle a fiscal crisis that is heaping extra pressure on an already-strained global financial system.
Markets largely shrugged off the no-show of Chinese central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan and Finance Minister Xie Xuren at the IMF annual meetings in Tokyo this week amid a territorial spat between Tokyo and Beijing over a chain of islands in the East China Sea.
Deputy governor Yi Gang will take Zhou's place at the summit and deliver the summit's closing lecture.
The move comes after several private Chinese banks were reported to be limiting or cancelling their participation in events linked to the meetings, which began on Tuesday and will run until Sunday.
Hiroshi Maeba, head of foreign exchange trading at UBS in Tokyo, largely discounted the impact of Zhou and Xie's no-show on currency markets.
"As long as someone else is coming as a fill-in, we don't care about it," he told Dow Jones Newswire.
"It's also not new as we already know that the Chinese banks won't be here."
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.