BOJ takes steps to boost investment, wages

Tokyo

THE Bank of Japan's Policy Board on Friday agreed to adopt innovative new policy measures aimed indirectly at stimulating corporate capital investment and raising wages - two lagging elements seen as holding back expansion of the world's third largest economy and also suppressing the inflation rate.

Governor Haruhiko Kuroda denied at the close of the two-day meeting that the new measures amount to an expansion of the central bank's existing quantitative easing programme, noting that they "supplement" the QE programme.

Market confusion over whether or not the measures amount to expanded mon…