Bank Of Japan Stands Pat On Rates, YCC
(RTTNews) - The Bank of Japan continued to retain its negative interest rate and the yield curve control on Tuesday, navigating opposite to the global move of tightening the policy to address inflationary pressures.
The BoJ policy board, led by Governor Kazuo Ueda, unanimously decided to maintain a negative interest rate of 0.1 percent on current accounts that financial institutions maintain at the central bank.
The bank will continue to purchase a necessary amount of Japanese government bonds without setting an upper limit so that 10-year JGB yields will remain at around zero percent.
The bank also decided to regard the upper bound of 1.0 percent for 10-year JGB yields as a reference in its market operations.
Capital Economics economist Marcel Thieliant said the BoJ will raise its policy rate to +0.1 percent in March from the current -0.1 percent.
Also, the bank will formally ditch the YCC a few months later, the economist added.
The central bank also downgraded its core inflation outlook for the next fiscal year due to the effects of the recent fall in crude oil prices, but inflation is forecast to remain above 2 percent.
In the Outlook for Economic Activity and Prices, the BoJ said the core inflation outlook is seen at 2.4 percent, down from 2.8 percent estimated in October.
The projection for the fiscal 2025 was lifted to 1.8 percent from 1.7 percent.
The real economic growth forecast for the fiscal 2024 was lifted to 1.2 percent from 1.0 percent and the estimate for the fiscal 2025 was retained at 1.0 percent.
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