Japan is to provide up to $100bn from its foreign exchange reserves to support Japanese overseas?investments and exports in an unprecedented attempt to encourage capital outflows and help companies hurt by the yen’s rise against the US dollar.

The finance ministry said risk capital – mostly in the form of cheap loans – would be offered by the Japan Bank for International Co-operation to encourage mergers and acquisitions and investment in natural resources, and to support exports by small and medium-sized businesses. It will be available to companies for the next 12 months.

Japan is the latest country, after the likes of Brazil and Turkey, to turn to inventive policies to help its export industries in a global slowdown. The particularly unusual nature of its move highlights the paucity of policy options available to Tokyo, after two attempts this year to stem the yen’s rise by intervening in the currency markets.