The Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) latest Meeting Minutes cover the Japanese central bank’s inner dialogue from the BoJ’s previous meeting in September, which will see limited impact in markets following October’s BoJ Meeting Minutes.
Key quotes (via BoJ)
In the money market, interest rates on both overnight and term instruments had been generally in negative territory.
Japan’s economy was expanding moderately, with a virtuous cycle from income to spending operating, and was likely to continue its moderate expansion.
Financial conditions were highly accommodative. Inflation expectations had been more or less unchanged. Long-term real interest rates — calculated as long-term interest rates minus medium- to long-term inflation expectations — had been negative. Firms’ funding costs had been hovering at extremely low levels.
As for prices, members concurred that the year-on-year rate of change in the CPI for all items less fresh food was in the range of 0.5-1.0 percent, and the rate of increase in the CPI for all items less fresh food and energy remained in the range of 0.0-0.5 percent, due partly to firms’ cautious wage- and price-setting stance. On this basis, they shared the recognition that, taking account of the recent underlying trend in the CPI, the year-on-year rate of change in the CPI continued to show relatively weak developments compared to the economic expansion and the labor market tightening.
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