BOJ's lone dissenter beginning to be heard

Tokyo

TAKAHIDE Kiuchi often appears a lone voice of dissent on the Bank of Japan board as his proposals to change key elements of its massive monetary stimulus are consistently voted down, but two years into the policy he is looking increasingly prescient.

With the BOJ no closer to hitting the 2 per cent inflation target it set for April 2015 when governor Haruhiko Kuroda embarked on his radical money-printing drive, other members on the nine-strong board are starting to share Mr Kiuchi's concerns about the pitfalls of the policy.