- Haruhiko Kuroda, Bank of Japan Governor
Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said the BoJ has ample room to increase further monetary accommodation and is ready to cut interest rates deeper into negative territory. Even after launching what Kuroda described as "the most powerful monetary policy framework in the history of modern central banking," the Governor is prepared to deploy new tools to support the world's third biggest economy if existing tools appeared to be ineffective. The BoJ chief said although Japan's economy was recovering moderately, it was taking longer than expected to reach the 2% inflation target due to slumping energy costs. Kuroda added that the recent global markets rout and slowing emerging economies could undermined Japanese business sentiment and discourage firms from increasing wages. However, Kuroda remains optimistic on China's outlook, saying the world's second biggest economy was likely to ensure stable growth as policy makers have a lot of opportunities to provide additional fiscal and monetary stimulus measures.
The BoJ stunned global financial markets by following European counterparts, when it introduced negative interest rates on January 29. The central bank will charge a 0.1% interest on some of the excess reserves financial institutions park with the BoJ, while keeping its existing asset-buying programme unchanged
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