All national papers reported that the Bank of Japan decided yesterday to maintain its aggressive monetary easing policy. In its quarterly outlook that was released on Thursday, the central bank also raised its inflation forecast for FY2022 from 1.9% to 2.3%. BOJ Governor Kuroda reiterated in a news conference that the nation still needs aggressive monetary easing to support economic….Read more

TOKYO — The Bank of Japan on Thursday maintained its ultralow rate policy to support the nation’s budding economic recovery, bucking the global trend of monetary tightening despite the prospect that inflation will reach its target this year and the yen may weaken further.   In a quarterly outlook report released after a two-day policy meeting, the BOJ upgraded its….Read more

Monday’s Yomiuri gave top play to preliminary policy guidelines drafted by the GOJ to bolster the nation’s economic security, claiming that hypersonic, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, quantum computing, and 16 other scientific fields will be categorized as “designated important technologies” in which it plans to invest heavily in R&D. The GOJ has reportedly identified the 20 areas based on the assessment….Read more

Saturday’s Asahi reported on the yen’s continued slide against U.S. dollar, saying that while Finance Minister Suzuki and other Japanese officials have hinted at possible foreign exchange intervention, the United States is apparently cautious about taking a concerted approach toward curbing the Japanese currency’s further plunge. While quoting Treasury Secretary Yellen as saying during her recent trip to Tokyo earlier….Read more

  Tokyo, July 11 (Jiji Press)–After the ruling Liberal Democratic Party won big in Sunday’s House of Councillors election, the government of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is set to step up its efforts to tackle economic challenges including soaring prices.   While the Bank of Japan is highly likely to keep its current ultraeasy monetary policy intact for the….Read more

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) will assess the effectiveness of large-scale projects with large budgets, such as subsidies to attract semiconductor manufacturers to Japan. METI will utilize the causal inference model used in economics to analyze whether measures are effective, and review policies based on the results. METI aims to introduce evidence-based policymaking (EBPM), which has become….Read more

Oguro Kazumasa, Hosei University professor   How to normalize government spending that has seen a rapid increase due to the pandemic will be questioned. It is difficult for the state and local governments to achieve a primary balance surplus by fiscal 2025. After the Upper House election is over, the government needs to move to create the goal of achieving….Read more

Sunday’s Yomiuri gave top play to its finding that the Chinese government is planning to introduce a new regulation to require Japanese and other foreign manufacturers of multifunctional office equipment to design and manufacture such products in China. Devices such as printers, scanners, and other products that fail to meet the requirements are likely to be excluded from submitting tenders….Read more

TOKYO — As prices of necessity goods such as food and electricity soar following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, political parties in Japan are struggling to present immediate solutions as they head into the July 10 election for the upper chamber of parliament.   Since Japan is a resource-importing country, surging energy prices and rapid falls of the yen against the….Read more

Tokyo, June 21 (Jiji Press)–The Japanese government said Tuesday that it will create subsidies to cut costs to produce agricultural products by 10 pct amid surging prices worsened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.     At the first meeting of its new task force to fight price rises and secure wage growth, the government also said it will help electricity suppliers….Read more