Kuroda Vows to Stay Course After Speculation Over Tightening
- BOJ governor says yield-curve control not a problem for banks
- Kuroda pledges additional easing if price momentum at risk
Haruhiko Kuroda
Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/BloombergBank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda gave the clearest signal yet that his recent comments about the "reversal rate" theory weren’t an indication of tighter monetary policy in the coming year.
The BOJ’s yield-curve control program, partly intended to address the impact of monetary easing on Japanese banks, has been successful and hasn’t created any problems for financial institutions such as those described in the reversal rate theory, Kuroda said Monday during a conference in Tokyo when asked about his comments last month.
“During my speech at the University of Zurich, I mentioned the reversal rate and other academic arguments, but as I said, our strategy already changed in September last year,” Kuroda said.
The BOJ needs to continue “extremely” accommodative monetary policy because inflation remains far from its 2 percent target, and will act immediately to undertake additional monetary easing if the current price momentum appears at risk, he said.
“I would like to emphasize that the current yield-curve control has been quite successful and we will continue the current framework in order to achieve the 2 percent price target,” he said.