MNI POLICY: BOJ Increases Scale of Medium-Term JGB Buying

     TOKYO (MNI) - The Bank of Japan (BOJ) on Friday increased the scale of its

purchase of Japanese government bonds with a remaining life of 1-3 years and 3-5

years as the BOJ changed the guideline of its monthly bond buying operation.

     The scale of JGB buying with a remaining life of 1-3 years was increased to

Y350 billion from Y300 billon at a similar operation on Tuesday and the scale of

bond buying with a remaining life of 3-5 years was also increased to Y400

billion from Y350 billion on Tuesday.

     The sale of JGB buying with a remaining life of 5-10 years was left at Y450

billion.

     On Wednesday, the BOJ has said that it reduced the frequency of medium-term

JGB buying operations to four times in November from five in October.

     The BOJ increased a range of bond buying with a remaining life of 1-3 years

to between Y250 billion and Y450 billion from a range of Y200 billion to Y400

billion.

     A range of JGB buying with a remaining life of 3-5 years was also increased

to between Y300 billon and Y500 billion from a range of Y250 billion to Y450

billion.

     Wednesday's decisions were aimed at improving the functioning in JGB

markets as bond prices have been moving in a tight range on the back of the

BOJ's massive bond buying.

--MNI Tokyo Bureau; tel: +81 90-2175-0040; email: hiroshi.inoue@marketnews.com

--MNI Beijing Bureau; +86 10 8532 5998; email: william.bi@mni-news.com

[TOPICS: MMJBJ$,M$A$$$,M$J$$$,M$$FI$,MN$FI$]