Bank of Japan keeps interest rate steady at 0.1pc
The Bank of Japan on Tuesday kept its key rate unchanged at 0.1 percent, as expected, but stopped short of new steps to brake the rise of the yen, which is close to 15-year highs against the dollar.
Governor Masaaki Shirakawa also tried to allay concerns voiced by the government about the yen's ascent, which has cost companies tens of billions of yen in lost profit and shaken Japan's fragile recovery.
"Speaking from a general perspective, a rising yen can depress exports in the short-term," he told reporters after the bank's monetary policy meeting in which the currency was a "subject of long debate".
But he said the Japanese economy was moving in line with the bank's outlook report issued in April and its assessment issued last month, in which it raised its growth forecast to 2.6 percent for this fiscal year.
Comments