Japan’s central bank stands pat on ultra-loose policy
TOKYO, March 10– The Bank of Japan on Friday opted to maintain its ultra-easy monetary policy despite rising inflation and the yen’s recent weakness. Japan’s parliament on Friday, meanwhile, endorsed the appointment of economist and academic Kazuo Ueda as the new Bank of Japan governor. The government’s picks for two BOJ deputy governors Ryozo Himino, a former…
TOKYO, March 10 (Xinhua) — The Bank of Japan (BOJ) on Friday opted to maintain its ultra-easy monetary policy despite rising inflation and the yen’s recent weakness.
In the last meeting chaired by Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, the BOJ decided to keep short-term interest rates at minus 0.1 percent and guide 10-year Japanese government bond yields to around zero percent.
The BOJ also said its yield on 10-year Japanese government bonds would be kept at a range of plus and minus 0.5 percent and unlimited amounts of 10-year bonds would continue to be purchased to defend its upper limit on the key yield.
The central bank also retained its assessment of the economy, saying that it has “picked up” despite the blow from higher commodity prices.
Japan’s parliament on Friday, meanwhile, endorsed the appointment of economist and academic Kazuo Ueda as the new Bank of Japan (BOJ) governor.
Ueda, 71, a former BOJ policy board member, was endorsed by the lower chamber of parliament a day earlier and will succeed Kuroda whose 10-year tenure ends on April 8.
The government’s picks for two BOJ deputy governors Ryozo Himino, a former commissioner of the Financial Services Agency, and Shinichi Uchida, an executive director at the central bank, were also endorsed by parliament on Friday.
Ueda will head Japan’s central bank for five years and guide its policy to achieve the bank’s long-held target of achieving a 2 percent inflation target in a stable manner.
Ueda, who was instrumental in introducing the BOJ’s zero interest rate policy and quantitative easing measures, has indicated he plans to stick to the central bank’s massive monetary easing program to underpin the country’s largely stagnant economy, despite the program being heavily criticized for requiring massive purchases of government bonds. Enditem
