3,670 days. That is how long Haruhiko Kuroda has served as BOJ governor and it is the longest of any governor since the central bank's inception in 1882. Of course, this being that he is the only governor to have served a second term since they made an amendment allowing for that back in 1998.
During his first term, Kuroda had his hands busy and had to bring about some interesting concepts in monetary policy. Japan had been stuck in a deflationary mindset for the longest of time and the government also had to herald in a change on the demographics front, with the aging population being a challenging issue.
In 2013, Kuroda introduced QE and QQE and in 2016, he introduced the now infamous yield curve control (YCC) and negative interest rates. The deep dive into ultra easy monetary policy was meant to try and dig the Japanese economy out of deflation for the most part.
And thus, the nickname 'bazooka man' was coined.
Despite claims that there had been progress, everyone knew that the policies introduced were not really bringing about significant changes to the economic landscape.
After the introduction of those policies, it was pretty much Kuroda's job just to put on a facade to say that they were the right thing to do and that they will eventually progress towards the 2% price target.
But as evident with the situation back in 2018/19, that was never going to be the case as outlined here at the time.
Yet, Kuroda was adamant that the target could be achieved. Or at least he needed to keep the illusion alive. It was pretty much a laboured effort and every single BOJ policy meeting sounded like a repeat of the last one.
It looked very much like his second term was going to be a dud and he would overstay his welcome, with markets increasingly losing faith that Japan will ever get out of the deflationary mindset and return a better economic performance.
"You either depart a hero or stay long enough to see yourself become the villain."
That seemed to be Kuroda's destiny as pretty much everyone knew that he was just a figurehead for the government, or more specifically, Abenomics.
But cue the Covid-19 pandemic and that made things a bit more interesting. While the BOJ didn't really double down on its ultra easy policy, they did have to step into the market to purchase ETFs to ensure market stability during that period.
And in the aftermath, where inflation is running more rampant now, there might be hope for a policy change in Japan - even if they are seen lagging behind their respective major counterparts in this regard.
Unfortunately, the timing and sequencing of events isn't really one to do Kuroda much favours. At this point, the government has already pinned him as the man to have guided the BOJ and Japan through the toughest times - having to lift the economy again after the global financial crisis and dealing with the deflationary mindset.
And as Japan is slowly chasing better price dynamics like the ones seen from the latest spring wage negotiations last month, a new face and regime would send a better message - at least in terms of the optics - that things might finally change in terms of BOJ policy.
"He is the governor the BOJ deserves but not the one it needs right now."
That is pretty much Kuroda's fate as his 10-year tenure came to an end over the weekend.
But even until the end, he still played his part to ensure a successful handover. He has been less dovish in his recent remarks and has steadily laid out the groundwork so that his successor, Kazuo Ueda, can easily transition towards exiting the ultra easy policy stance - that is should the government view in favour of that.
It was just not his time and not meant to be for Kuroda to be the one to lead Japan out of all the extremely accommodative monetary policy settings. However, he still did his job up until the very end and for all the tough times and the market memes, all he has done was just doing what was asked and needed for the role.
Happy retirement, Mr. K. You will be missed.
