Wayzata, Minneapolis

BANK of Japan (BOJ) governor Haruhiko Kuroda said that financial markets "could be surprised" if the central bank hits its 2 per cent inflation target in 2016 and interest rates in Japan start to rise as a result.

Mr Kuroda, who was speaking on Sunday to a business group in Minnesota after the spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington, said that the programme of expansionary monetary policy the BOJ launched in 2013 and expanded in October was working as designed to crack deflation.