In its latest statement on monetary policy, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) has maintained the pace of its bond-buying programme at an annual rate of 80trn yen.
Members of the BoJ voted by an 8-1 majority to continue with its current quantitative and qualitative easing (QQE) policy.
The BoJ repeated the wording it used in its previous statement, saying the country’s economy has “continued to recover moderately”.
Japan’s central bank said: “The year-on-year rate of increase in the CPI is likely to be about 0 per cent for the time being, due to the effects of the decline in energy prices.”
It added: “Risks to the outlook include developments in the emerging and commodity-exporting economies, the prospects regarding the debt problem and the momentum of economic activity and prices in Europe, and the pace of recovery in the US economy.”
