Markets

BOJ Does Not Consider Tapering Appropriate: Kuroda

REUTERS
FILE PHOTO: Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda speaks at a news conference in Tokyo, Japan, December 19, 2019.

Jiji Press

17:52 JST, May 13, 2022

Tokyo, May 13 (Jiji Press)—Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda on Friday voiced his reservations about possibly tapering the Japanese central bank’s monetary easing measures.

The BOJ “does not consider that scaling back the current monetary easing is appropriate,” he said at a lecture organized by Jiji Press-affiliated Research Institute of Japan, rejecting the notion that the BOJ may switch to monetary tightening policies similar to those of the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank.

He said that the BOJ considers maintaining its current policy of guiding the yield on the benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond issue to around zero pct, with wiggle room of 0.25 percentage point, as appropriate.

“Japan’s economy is in the process of recovering from a significant downturn caused by the (spread of) the novel coronavirus,” Kuroda noted.

He, however, warned of downside risks “for the time being” brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Given current developments in economic activity and prices in Japan, the BOJ considers it necessary to support economic recovery from the impact of COVID-19 with aggressive monetary easing,” he concluded.