- Bank of Japan
The Bank of Japan left its monetary policy unchanged at its meeting on Thursday, ignoring other major central banks, such as the Fed, that started "normalizing" their policies. Seven out of nine policymakers voted to keep interest rates at the current record low of -0.10% and maintain a pledge to keep buying government bonds so that 10-year yields would remain at about 0%. Moreover, the BoJ stated it would continue purchases at an annual pace of around 80 trillion yen. Policymakers said the Bank would stick to its QQE programme until the inflationary target of 2% is achieve. The Central bank also left its purchases of exchange-traded funds and Japanese real estate investment trusts unchanged at an annual pace of 6 trillion and 90 billion yen, accordingly. The Bank said that the Japanese economy remained on a moderate recovery track and would likely turn to a moderate expansion. A couple of months ago, the US President Donald Trump accused Japan of using "money supply" to weaken the Yen and benefit from it. However, the BoJ said it was serving under the G20 rules and was using its monetary policy only for domestic purposes. Analysts do not expect the BoJ to make changes to its policy in the near future. The Japanese Yen traded little changed after the release.
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