BoJ Governor Kazuo Ueda, who recently attended the G20 finance leaders’ meeting in Washington, expects core consumer inflation in Japan, currently around 3%, to slow below 2% by the latter half of this fiscal year. Ueda emphasized the central bank’s commitment to maintaining ultra-loose monetary policy in order to achieve its 2% inflation target in a stable and sustainable manner.
Ueda believes that “as our base scenario is for global growth to pick up after a period of slowdown, Japan’s wages will likely keep rising.” He added that the BoJ’s forecasts already factor in the possibility of a global economic slowdown, but a severe global recession is not considered in the baseline projection.
As for the upcoming April policy meeting, Ueda said, “It’s been just a week since I took office and now I am on a business trip. I’ll think about it closely once I’m back.” Market participants are closely watching the BoJ’s first policy meeting under Ueda’s leadership on April 27-28, where the board will release fresh quarterly growth and inflation forecasts extending through fiscal 2025.
