- BoJ meeting minutes
While the Bank of Japan's policy makers believed private consumption would remain resilient as incomes are increasing, they expressed concerns about Japan's inflation. Board members said that risks to consumer prices are tilted to the downside amid uncertainty about long-term inflation expectations, consumer spending as well as the output gap, minutes of BoJ's April 30 policy gathering indicated. If consumer prices slid to zero, it would affect inflation expectations. In March, data showed the consumer inflation rate climbed 0.2%, excluding the impact of sales tax increase last year. As a result, the BoJ pushed back the timeline for achieving its inflation target to fiscal 2016. Yet, a few members remained sceptical about the new timeframe, saying that consumer prices would not reach the central bank's price goal in fiscal 2017, the minutes showed. Previously, the BoJ had expected that it could achieve its target sometime around fiscal 2015.
In addition to that, central bank's decision makers agreed that the risks to Japan's growth are balanced, but they warned that growth could slow temporarily due to a nationwide sales tax hike in the beginning of fiscal 2017. Official data showed the world's third largest economy expanded an annualized 2.4% in the first quarter, better than expected and following the 1.5% annualized growth in the final quarter of 2014.
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