Policymakers at Bank of Japan agreed that the bank should shift away from incremental monetary easing and convince the markets that it is determined to take all possible measures to achieve 2 percent inflation target, minutes from BoJ's April 3-4 meeting showed Thursday.
"Members concurred that the Bank should shift away from its gradualistic approach and stop adopting easing measures in an incremental manner," the minutes showed.
Meanwhile, some members expressed the view that it was important for the Bank to introduce a policy that would have an impact in terms of scale, so that the markets would perceive that it had decided to take all necessary measures to achieve the price stability target of 2 percent. At the April 3-4 meeting, the Policy Board decided to double the monetary base by end-2014 while switching its main operating target for money market operations to the monetary base from the uncollateralized overnight call rate.
Most of the members agreed that the central bank should aim at the 2 percent price target with a time horizon of about two years. Against this view, one member noted that, taking into account the uncertainties regarding the achievement of the target, presenting the time horizon of about two years entailed a high risk.
Last month, the bank decided to extend the average remaining maturity of the Bank's JGB purchases to about seven years from slightly less than three years at present.
Some members were of the opinion that, since the average remaining maturity of JGBs to be purchased was subject to fluctuations, depending on bids by financial institutions, it was appropriate to allow for a range of about six to eight years.
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December 19, 2025 15:10 ET U.S. inflation data and interest rate decisions by major central banks were the highlights of this busy week for economics news flow. Employment data and survey results on the housing markets also gained attention in the U.S. In Europe, the European Central Bank and Bank of England announced their policy decisions and macroeconomic projections.