Deputy Governor Masayoshi Amamiya said, “Japan’s economy hasn’t recovered yet to pre-pandemic levels… The foundations for an economic recovery remain weak and the outlook for wages is highly uncertain. As such, we need to support economic activity with accommodative monetary policy.”
“Achieving our price target means having consumer inflation hit 2% on average over the business cycle, not a temporary rise to that level driven by exogenous factors such as increasing energy import costs,” he emphasized.
Japan’s CPI core (all-item ex fresh food), has been above BoJ’s 2% target for three straight months. But officials are seeing it as temporary, at least until wage pressures build up.