The yen rose during foreign exchange trading in Asia on Thursday (September 24th) amid speculation that Japanese companies have been repatriating foreign earnings.Ahead of the opening of trading activity in London, the yen had risen against the 16 currencies tracked by Bloomberg, bringing it close to a one-week high against the dollar.Support for the currency came from speculation that many Japanese firms have been repatriating foreign profits generated overseas during the first half of the fiscal year.Yuji Saito, head of the foreign exchange group in Tokyo at Societe Generale SA, France's third-largest bank, told the news agency that this process of yen repatriation is likely to peak over the next two days."There are probably a lot of yen-purchase orders from exporters after three days of holidays. This may lead to buying of the yen," he said.Meanwhile, the dollar continued to languish this morning in the wake of the Federal Reserve's cautious assessment of the state of the national economy yesterday.