By Reuters Staff
Dec 18 (Reuters) – The Bank of Japan on Friday unveiled a plan to probe more effective ways to achieve its 2% inflation target, following in the footsteps of its U.S. and European counterparts as a renewed spike in infections threatened to derail a fragile recovery.
Following are excerpts from BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kurodas comments at his post-meeting news conference, which was conducted in Japanese, as translated by Reuters:
ON BOJS PLANNED EXAMINATION OF ITS MONETARY EASING We will examine operations under yield curve control and our asset purchases. Weve been reviewing these occasionally. If we find room to take additional measures to make our monetary easing more effective and sustainable, well put them in place.
Obviously, there will be no change to our commitment to achieve our 2% inflation target and our pledge to maintain ultra-loose policy until inflation stably exceeds 2%.
We will also not tweak our negative rate policy.
Well use the knowledge we have obtained so far, add analyses and wont rule out options to make our framework more effective and sustainable. It has nothing to do with an exit from easy policy. We wont be weakening our monetary easing. Rather, were examining ways to make our monetary easing more effective.
With the pandemic, theres a risk the achievement of our 2% inflation target will be delayed. As our monetary easing lasts for a long time, there are concerns in the market about the side effects of our policy. YCC is a framework that can address such concerns but we will look into what we can do further.
ASKED WHETHER THE REVIEW WILL BE MORE ABOUT FINE-TUNING OF MARKET OPERATIONS, RATHER THAN SOMETHING CLOSE TO THE POLICY REVIEWS OF THE FED, ECB Information on the policy reviews of the Fed and ECB would be something well take into consideration. But yes, that is my understanding. (Reporting by Leika Kihara; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)read more
EXCERPTS-BOJ Governor Kuroda’s comments at news conference – Reuters UK
