Kazuo Ueda announced a comprehensive review of the Bank of Japan’s monetary policy in his first board meeting as governor but held off on changes to its ultra-loose stance as he played down the risks from rising inflation.
Ueda became the first academic to take the helm of Japan’s central bank this year as consumer prices in the country hit a multi-decade high, fuelling investor expectations that he would gradually unwind radical policy tools deployed over the past decade to lift the economy out of deflation.
The 71-year-old economist played it safe by maintaining the central bank’s policy on Friday but left room for changes in the coming months, with the BoJ forecasting Japan’s inflation was likely to remain close to its 2 per cent target in the next two fiscal years.