BOJ to review policies from past decades

THE Bank of Japan (BOJ) is planning to review and inspect policies taken over the past decades, kicking off discussions at a two-day meeting scheduled for Apr 27 and 28 under newly-appointed governor Kazuo Ueda, the Sankei newspaper reported on Sunday (Apr 23), without attribution.

The BOJ will examine the reasons undergirding Japan’s stagnant economy so that it can come up with effective policies under Ueda, the report said.

The central bank has eased policy since it adopted zero-interest rates in 1999. Ueda’s predecessor, Haruhiko Kuroda, expanded asset-purchasing programmes and introduced negative interest rates to achieve the bank’s 2 per cent inflation goal.

The bank is expected to consider the past quarter-century of Japan’s deflationary economy, but could go back as far as about 30 years, when Japan’s bubble economy burst, according to the report.

Earlier this month, Ueda said in his inaugural speech as governor that the bank’s yield curve control and negative interest rates were appropriate for now. But he added that he was open to the idea of a longer-term policy review. BLOOMBERG