TOKYO, Mac 19 (NNN-NHK) – The Bank of Japan (BOJ), today decided to end its negative interest rate policy, and yield curve control policy, marking a major shift away from the long-running monetary easing that Japan has seen over the past decade, to put an end to deflation.
After a two-day policy meeting, the central bank’s policy board decided to guide short-term rate to a range of zero to 0.1 percent, up a fraction from minus 0.1 to zero percent, introducing a rate hike for the first time in 17 years, since Feb, 2007.
The BOJ also scrapped its yield curve control policy of keeping 10-year Japanese government bond yields, at around zero percent, to maintain accommodative financial conditions.
The central bank introduced negative rates and yield curve control in 2016, which had been a symbol of the BOJ’s more-than-decade long ultraloose monetary stimulus.
The widely expected move today, follows robust pay increases that have heightened the BOJ’s confidence that a healthy wage-price cycle is taking root in Japan, and mild inflation will continue.– NNN-NHK
