TOKYO (MNI) – The Bank of Japan board agreed in early April that
the BOJ should implement the monetary easing decided about two months
earlier and monitor its impact for now, instead of taking more stimulus
measures, the minutes of its April 9-10 policy meeting released Monday
showed.
“Members agreed that it was appropriate to steadily implement the
BOJ’s decision at the February meeting and past meetings to increase the
total size of the program through the purchase of financial assets, and
to monitor their effects,” the minutes said.
Members also agreed that the repeated expansions made to the total
size of the temporary asset-buying program had brought about “some
positive effects” to financial markets.
“Many members commented that, although the effects of monetary
policy were seen in short-term changes in financial markets, such as
those in stock prices and foreign exchange rates, they should be
examined based on how they fed through to economic activity and prices,”
the minutes said.
At its April 9-10 meeting, the BOJ board voted unanimously to
maintain practically zero short-term interest rates to help support a
recovery from deflation but also left the scale of its financial
asset-buying at Y65 trillion after raising it in February.
Later at the April 27 policy meeting, the BOJ board decided to
expand its financial asset-buying fund to about Y70 trillion from Y65
trillion, as widely expected, by raising purchases of long-term Japanese
government bonds and reducing six-month market operations.
The BOJ has left its target for the overnight interest rate among
commercial banks at zero to 0.1% since October 2010, when it lowered it
from 0.1% as part of “comprehensive monetary easing.”
tokyo@marketnews.com
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