- BoJ meeting minutes
The Bank of Japan's policy meeting minutes showed a unity of policy makers has cracked. BoJ board member Takahide Kiuchi urged the BOJ to immediately reduce its annual Japanese government bond purchase target by almost half to 45 trillion yen a year. The proposal was met with stiff resistance from other policy-setters, who claimed cutting asset purchases before the inflation goal is reached would likely limit effects of policy steps. Japan's consumer inflation was at 0.2% in March, considerably below the 2% inflation target. Thus, on the backdrop of precipitous decline in global oil prices, the Bank of Japan recently abandoned its informal timeframe for reaching a 2% inflation target. The central bank now expects to reach the targeted level in the first half of fiscal 2016 depending on oil prices movement. On top of that, some members admitted that annual consumer inflation might turn negative in coming months.
In addition to that, some BoJ board members warned that private consumption remained tepid despite improvements in job markets, underscoring a lack of confidence among policy-setters over the strength of the Japanese economy. Others pointed to the sluggish recovery in consumption and concerns of some companies over overseas developments, BoJ' minutes showed.
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