- Bank of Japan
The Bank of Japan maintained its monetary policy, hoping that an economic recovery is around the corner despite soft domestic capital expenditure and uneasy global business conditions. As widely expected, the central bank reiterated its pledge to increase base money at an annual pace of 80 trillion yen through purchases of governments bonds and risky assets. The BoJ has kept monetary policy unchanged since expanding stimulus in October last year, even as falling oil prices and weak exports push Japan's inflation further away from its goal. The BoJ repeated its view that the world's third biggest economy continued to recover moderately, although production and exports have been hit hard by the slowdown in emerging markets. The central bank admitted that an annual change in the consumer inflation is likely to be around 0% for the time being, due to the effects of the energy prices drop.
The BoJ sees risks to Japan's economic outlook stemming from developments in the emerging and commodity-exporting economies, the debt problem and the pace of economic activity and prices in Europe, as well as the recovery in the US economy.
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