Bank of Japan Governor Ueda:
- Trend inflation remains below 2% but gradually accelerating, which is partly due to effect of monetary easing
- It takes a very long for impact of monetary policy steps to appear on economy, prices
- Monetary policy steps taken now will affect economy, prices half-year, 1 year, 1.5 years ahead
- Tightening monetary policy now could push down inflation in future, which is already likely to slow on dissipating effect of import costs
- If we see risk of runaway inflation, we must normalise monetary policy
We see risk of inflation undershooting forecast as bigger than risk of overshooting, which is why BOJ must maintain easy policy now
Earlier from the BOJ Gov:
- BOJ Gov Ueda says extremely important for FX rates to move stably, reflect fundamentals
- Bank of Japan Governor Ueda repeats its appropriate to maintain YCC, easy monetary policy
The Bank of Japan meet later this week, statement due on Friday. Is it just me or do comments like this lot seem to indicate there will be no change to policy at this meeting?