The Bank of Japan (BoJ) Governor Kazuo Ueda stated in his Semiannual Report on Currency and Monetary Control on Wednesday that, given the current perspective for economic activity and prices, it expects accommodative financial conditions to be maintained for the time being.
Key quotes
“Now within sight that the price stability target of 2 percent would be achieved in a sustainable and stable manner toward the end of the projection period of the January 2024 Outlook Report, as various data and anecdotal information from firms had gradually shown that the virtuous cycle between wages and prices had become more solid.”
“On this basis, the Bank considered that the policy framework of Quantitative and Qualitative Monetary Easing (QQE) with Yield Curve Control and the negative interest rate policy to date had fulfilled their roles, and it therefore changed the monetary policy framework.”
“Specifically, the Bank decided, among other measures, to set the uncollateralized overnight call rate as the policy interest rate and encourage that rate to remain at around 0 to 0.1 percent.”
“Given the current outlook for economic activity and prices, it anticipates that accommodative financial conditions will be maintained for the time being.”
“Trend inflation yet to reach 2%, so need to support economy’s momentum toward hitting 2% by maintaining accommodative monetary conditions.”
“Want to scrutinise whether trend inflation will indeed head toward 2% in judging appropriate degree of monetary support.”
“Waiting to exit until trend inflation hits 2% would have heightened risk of inflation overshoot, force us to hike rates aggressively.”
Market reaction
The USD/JPY pair is trading at 151.70, losing 0.04% on the day at the time of writing.
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