Brussels, February 25:

Finance ministers from the 13 countries sharing the euro were due on Monday to take stock of growth in their combined economy amid concerns that the yen’s weakness is hurting their exports.

The Japanese currency hit a new low against the euro on Thursday of 159.61 yen before firming up on Friday. The exchange rate question “will certainly be addressed Monday evening,” said a source close to Luxembourg Prime and Finance Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs monthly meetings of eurozone finance ministers.

Juncker is due to “debrief” colleagues about a meeting of finance ministers from the Group of Seven most industrialised nations two weeks ago in Essen central Germany, where Japan assured its European partners the yen would pick up strength. Despite such assurances and an increase in the Bank of Japan’s interest rates, the yen has so far failed to recover.

After the G7 meeting, several European ministers took diverging positions on the yen’s weakness with Juncker sounding the alarm while Italian finance minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa said that exchange rates should be decided by markets.

Yen’s weakness has become a hot topic in Europe because it makes Japanese exports, like cars, cheaper on international markets.