Bank of Japan December meeting minutes: Agreed to patiently maintain easy policy

Earlier from Japan:

From the minutes, Headlines via Reuters:

  • Members agreed must patiently maintain easy policy
  • Many members said
    must confirm positive wage-inflation cycle in order to consider
    ending negative rates, YCC
  • A few members said
    decision on whether positive wage-inflation cycle is in place must be
    made comprehensively, not at looking at particular data
  • A few members said
    don’t see risk of BOJ being behind-the-curve, can wait for
    developments in this spring’s annual wage talks
  • One member said even
    if wage hikes in 2024 overshoot expectations, risk of trend inflation
    sharply deviating 2% was small
  • One member said
    japan’s inflationary pressure subsiding, important to carefully
    scrutinise wage, price moves
  • One member said BOJ
    can spend ample time determining wage-inflation cycle as it has
    already addressed side-effects of YCC
  • One member said
    timing to normalise monetary policy was nearing
  • One member said BOJ
    must not miss opportunity to change policy to prevent rising
    inflation from hurting consumption
  • This member said
    risk of inflation rising too much and requiring sharp monetary
    tightening was small, but if this happens the cost would be enormous
  • Members agreed what
    means, and what order, BOJ would end negative rates and YCC must be
    decided looking at economy, price, market moves at the time

Full text is here:

Collapsing inflation will be a conundrum for Bank of Japan Governor Ueda.

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com. Source