MNI BRIEF: BOJ Kuroda: Policy Move Not Step Toward Exit

The Bank of Japan's recent policy decision to widen the trading band for benchmark 10-Yyear JGB yields isn’t a step toward an exit of easy policy, Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said Monday.

The BOJ will bank will continue “with monetary easing under the framework of yield curve control going forward, they have the significant merit of facilitating the transmission of monetary easing effects, such as through corporate financing, while maintaining the function of JGB yields as reference rates,” Kuroda told the Keidanren's Meeting of Councillors in Tokyo.

Kuroda said the latest decision (MNI BOJ WATCH: Kuroda Dismisses Shock Shift As Tighter Policy) was "definitely not a step toward an exit" but a move to "continue the implementation of a sustainable monetary easing". “The Bank will aim to achieve the price stability target in a sustainable and stable manner, accompanied by wage increases, by continuing with monetary easing under the framework of yield curve control,” Kuroda said.

Kuroda added that Japan's labour market conditions are projected to "tighten further", withh additional corporate prices hikes also likely to follow, noting that Japan was now, for the first time since the collapse of the bubble economy, at a critical juncture of emerging from the period of low inflation and growth.