Bank of Japan leaves monetary policy unchanged

RTTNews reports that the Bank of Japan decided to maintain its monetary policy unchanged, at -0.1%, but raised the growth projections, citing the impetus from the fiscal stimulus measures.

The bank will continue to purchase necessary amount of Japanese government bonds without setting an upper limit so that 10-year JGB yields will remain at around zero percent.

Markets had expected the bank to keep monetary policy unchanged ahead of the policy review in March.

In its quarterly Outlook for Economic Activity and Prices report, released today, the bank said compared to October, the projected growth rates were somewhat higher, mainly for fiscal 2021, reflecting the effects of the government's economic measures in particular.

The outlook is based on the assumption that the impact of the pandemic will wane gradually and then almost subside toward the end of the projection period.

The bank lifted the fiscal 2021 GDP growth outlook to 3.9 percent from 3.6 percent. Likewise, the growth projection for the fiscal 2022 was raised to 1.8 percent from 1.6 percent.

The BoJ expects consumer prices to rise 0.5 percent in the fiscal 2021 instead of 0.4 percent forecast in October. At the same time, inflation outlook for the fiscal 2022 was retained at 0.7 percent.