Bank of Japan stays firmly in crisis mode, ending a year of no change
Tokyo — The Bank of Japan (BoJ) kept monetary policy steady on Thursday despite growing signs of strength in the economy, signalling that it was in no rush to edge away from crisis-mode stimulus with inflation still distant from its 2% target. As widely expected, the BoJ kept its short-term interest rate target at minus 0.1% and the 10-year bond yield target close to zero — wrapping up a year in which the central bank made no change to policy. BoJ governor Haruhiko Kuroda told a news conference he had no plan to change the current policy framework now, saying that dwindling profits at financial institutions resulted not simply from ultra-low interest rates but structural factors such as a dwindling population. "We made clear in our comprehensive assessment last September that we will guide the yield curve (a measure of future interest rates) to the most appropriate shape looking comprehensively at various factors, including financial conditions. We haven’t made any changes to that i...
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