Tokyo

JAPAN'S economic policies are overly dependent upon monetary easing, and now is the time for the government to think about making an exit from this policy of the Bank of Japan (BOJ), said the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party on Wednesday.

The comment by Katsuya Okada came at a sensitive moment, just as controversy has flared between Japan and the US over the impact of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's economic policy on the yen exchange rate, which could pitch the issue of BOJ policies into the political arena in the run-up to the upper house parliamentary election in July.