The Bank of Japan said on Wednesday that it would keep its aggressive monetary easing measures to overcome deflation and fragile growth in the world’s third-largest economy.
The central bank’s policy board voted to maintain its key policy of increasing base money at an annual pace of about 80 trillion yen, approximately 667 billion dollars.
The bank in a statement issued after a two-day meeting that it intends to do that through asset purchases.
The bank also said the year-on-year increase in the consumer price index “is likely to be about 0 per cent for the time being,” compared with “the range of 0.0-0.5 per cent” in March.
The government said in late March that the inflation rate was zero in February – well below the two per cent target set by the bank in April 2013.