The Bank of Japan’s governor warned on Friday that global markets remained unstable as he reaffirmed his commitment to raising interest rates should the country’s inflation and economic growth remain on track.
Kazuo Ueda’s remarks came after nearly six weeks of extreme market volatility during which the yen weakened to a historic low of ¥161 a dollar before sharply reversing course and surging more than 10 per cent. The Japanese stock market climbed to an all-time high before enduring its biggest ever one-day crash.
The central bank in March ended its negative interest rate policy after decades of on-and-off deflation. Ueda told parliament that the recent volatility was primarily stoked by concerns around the US economy, rather than the BoJ’s rate increase in late July, but noted that “markets at home and abroad remain unstable, so we will monitor market developments with a very high sense of urgency”.