BoJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda told the parliament today, “there’s uncertainty on when the coronavirus will be contained, and markets are making very unstable moves”. BoJ will “continue to keep an eye out on how the spread of the virus could affect Japan’s economy and prices, particularly via domestic and overseas market developments, and act appropriately as needed without hesitation.”
Japan Finance Minister Taro Aso reiterated that the government will only tap the remainder of this fiscal’s budget to finance the coronavirus response package. “We need to ascertain the current situation first”, he said, “at this stage there’s no saying” whether the government needs an extra budget. He also noted, “financing will focus on small and tiny businesses who face the need of financing over the next two to three weeks.”
