BOJ Independence Challenged as Deflation Continues

Increasing risks to Japan’s recovery prompted what may become the biggest threat yet to the Bank of Japan’s independence as politicians seek to redress its failure to end the deflation entrenched in the economy since 1998.

Your Party, an opposition group, plans to submit a bill in the Diet session running through December that would give the government a greater role in BOJ policymaking. Ichiro Ozawa, a former challenger to Prime Minister Naoto Kan whose calls for currency intervention and enlarged fiscal stimulus have been adopted by Kan, made a similar proposal last month.