(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) Japan's central bank decided on Friday to maintain its current monetary easing measures and left unchanged its assessment of the country's economy.
At the end of a two-day policy meeting, Bank of Japan's (BOJ) Governor Haruhiko Kuroda and his eight board colleagues voted by eight to one to keep its ultra-easy policy introduced in April last year, after expanding the program in October, according to a statement released by the BOJ.
"The BOJ will conduct money market operations so that the monetary base will increase at an annual pace of about JPY 80 trillion (USD 670 billion)," the central bank said.
The BOJ said its quantitative and qualitative monetary easing has been exerting its intended effects.
In April 2013, the BOJ launched a massive monetary easing program to end deflation that has lasted for nearly 15 years and achieve the 2 percent inflation target in fiscal 2015.
Despite weak gross domestic product (GDP) data for the third quarter, the central bank unchanged its assessment of the domestic economy, saying, "it has continued to recover moderately as a trend, and effects such as those of the decline in demand following the front-loaded increase prior to the consumption tax hike have been waning on the whole." But it raised its assessment on exports, saying they have shown signs of picking up, as overseas economies, mainly advanced economies, have been recovering.
"Business fixed investment has increased moderately as corporate profits have improved, and industrial production has started to bottom out," the BOJ said.
The central bank also noted private consumption has remained resilient. Japan's GDP shrank at an annualized rate of 1.9 percent in the July-September period, contracting for two straight quarters.
On the price front, the central bank said the year-on-year rate of change in the consumer price index is at around 1 percent. "Inflation expectations appear to be rising on the whole." Japan's core consumer price index rose 2.9 percent in October from a year earlier for the 171th straight month. With regard to the outlook, the BOJ said the world's third-biggest economy is expected to continue its moderate recovery trend, and the effects such as those of the decline in demand following the consumption tax hike in April from 5 percent to 8 percent.
It pointed out risks, saying, "Risks to the outlook include developments in the emerging and commodity-exporting economies, the prospects for the European debt problem, and the pace of recovery in the US economy.
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