BoJ Noguchi: Important to maintain monetary easing

BoJ board member Asahi Noguchi underlined the necessity of maintaining monetary easing as Japan navigates signs of wage growth.

“What’s most important now is for the BOJ to maintain monetary easing and ensure budding signs of wage growth become a sustained, strong trend,” he said.

Noguchi predicts that core consumer inflation, which has been running above the bank’s 2% target, will likely drop below this level around September or October. He attributed this anticipated decrease to the fading effects of past increases in raw material costs.

However, he noted that the possibility of inflation bouncing back above 2% later on and maintaining that level hinges largely on future wage trends and service prices.