Bank of Japan board member Hitoshi Suzuki said on Thursday the central bank would continue to seek ways to further improve its monetary policy framework with an eye on the benefits and costs of its stimulus measures.
In a speech, he said the BoJ must be vigilant to the accumulating side-effects of prolonged easing because maintaining a stable financial system is crucial for monetary policy steps to be effective.
Economic Activity, Prices, and Monetary Policy in Japan
Overseas economies have recovered on the whole, albeit with variation across countries and regions. Specifically, the United States and Europe, where vaccinations against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) moved ahead of other countries and regions, keep seeing economic improvement as the resumption of economic activity continues to progress.
The Chinese economy is still recovering as a trend, although the pace of improvement has decelerated, partly due to the resurgence of COVID-19 and power supply issues, for example, exerting downward pressure on domestic demand and production. Regarding emerging and commodity-exporting economies other than China, domestic demand and production in some countries and regions were under downward pressure due to the spread of COVID-19 in summer 2021, but these economies have picked up on the whole as the effects of the spread have been waning recently. Against this background, Japan's economy has picked up as a trend, although it remains in a severe situation due to the impact of COVID-19 at home and abroad.''
