No chance Japan will adopt 'helicopter money' soon: sources

Tokyo

THERE is no possibility that Japan will resort to "helicopter money" in the near future - a policy in which the central bank indefinitely finances fiscal spending through perpetual bonds, say government and central bank officials directly involved in policymaking.

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) already gobbles up more government bonds than are sold to the market each month under its massive monetary stimulus programme - dubbed "quantitative and qualitative easing" (QQE) - deployed in 2013.

With the BOJ already keeping borrowing costs near zero with aggressive money printing, there is no strong push from Premier Shinzo Abe's administration to revise the law and force the central bank to resort to helicopter money, said the officials, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of th…