IMF to Tokyo and its central bank: 'Take bolder policy actions'

Tokyo

WITHIN hours of the Policy Board of the Bank of Japan (BOJ) deciding on Friday to maintain monetary easing at current levels, a terse report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) urged the Japanese central bank to be more proactive in ridding the nation of its long-standing deflationary mindset.

The report also called on prime minister Shinzo Abe's government to implement structural economic reforms and to tackle fiscal problems more vigorously, because "doubts about long-term fiscal sustainability could lead to higher sovereign risk premiums".

The IMF, implying that the BOJ's current consumer price inflation target of 2 per cent would require further policy action to achieve, noted that, under current policies, …