Japanese monetary policy must remain loose until the world’s third-largest economy achieves a higher inflation rate, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said.
“In order to reach 2 percent inflation target, I think the Bank of Japan must continue very strong accommodative monetary policy for some time,” Kuroda told CNBC’s Sara Eisen this weekend. “It’s necessary.”
His comments will be closely watched ahead of the central bank’s two-day policy meeting this Thursday and Friday. In March, the BOJ said it would keep the short-term policy rate unchanged at negative 0.1 percent and the 10-year yield target around 0 percent.
The real economy is doing “quite well” as prices steadily rise, Kuroda said, but noted that consumer price inflation, excluding fresh food, still remains around 1 percent. “And if you exclude energy items, then inflation rate is only about 0.5 percent,” he continued.
“So, there is still a long way to go to achieve the 2 percent inflation target.”
The country could finally achieve that level in fiscal 2019 even though “risks are skewed to the downside,” according to the central banker, who began his second term in the job earlier this month.
“But we are confident,” he added.
—CNBC’s Cheang Ming contributed to this report.
