MNI BRIEF: BOJ Must Keep Easy Policy As 2% Not Hit -Nakagawa

Bank of Japan board member Junko Nakagawa said on Wednesday that the BOJ needs to maintain easy policy to firmly support the economy as the 2% price target hasn’t been achieved.

“Long-term interest rates rose as a result of the decision to widen the range of the 10-year interest rate in December but the merit of easy policy, such as improvement of functioning in bond markets, is bigger than its demerits,” Nakagawa told business leaders in Fukushima City.

She also said the BOJ continues to carefully monitor underlying price moves as the year-on-year rise in inflation rate will slow as the rise in import prices that had boosted CPI will settle down.

“I expect the pace of price rises to clearly slow for the time being,” Nakagawa said.