BOJ keeps monetary policy unchanged

As was broadly expected, the Bank of Japan made the decision to keep its monetary policy unchanged in spite of growing concerns over economy and inflation that is clearly below the bank's target rate of 2%. The Central Bank's Policy Board made up its mind to hold the yearly asset purchases, which is the primary tool for beating deflation and generating inflation, at 80 trillion yen. The BoJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda stated that the Bank is going to steadily implement its Qualitative and Quantitative Easing programmes, in order to reach the inflation target of 2% as soon as possible. In addition to that, the Governor noted that the BoJ will take into consideration all existing threats to the Japanese economy and optimize its monetary program in an appropriate way.  

The country's economy experienced a contraction between April and June and some market experts anticipate another slowdown during the period of July-September due to decreasing global demand and weak consumption. Core consumer prices tumbled in the eight month of the year to post the first yearly fall since the BoJ's deployment of its massive stimulus programme more than two years ago. This in turn started raising doubts, whether intensive money printing alone can speed up inflation to 2%.