BOJ’s Next Hike Likely in October at Earliest, Ex-Official Says

The Bank of Japan will probably take its time before raising interest rates again, with October likely being the earliest it might move next, according to a former BOJ official renowned as one of the nation’s leading inflation experts.

“I don’t think the next move will come so soon,” Tsutomu Watanabe, the former official and an economics professor at the University of Tokyo, said Friday. “The BOJ is likely to adjust policy by looking at data, and won’t act irrationally.”