BOJ Keeps Rates Steady, RBA Minutes Released

The Bank of Japan kept monetary policy steady on Tuesday. After a two-day monetary policy meeting that began on Monday, the central bank maintained its pledge to increase base money at an annual pace of 80 trillion yen ($700 billion). It also left unchanged a 0.1 percent negative interest rate it applies to some reserves financial institutions park at the BOJ.

According to the BOJ, “Japan’s economy continues to recover moderately as a trend, although exports and production have been sluggish due mainly to the effects of slowing emerging markets growth.”

The central bank added that if necessary, additional easing steps will be taken to hit 2 percent inflation and that it will review the ratio of reserves for which negative interest rates are applied every three months.

The BOJ unexpectedly cut a benchmark interest rate below zero in January, stunning investors with another bold move to stimulate the economy as volatile markets and slowing global growth threaten its efforts to overcome deflation.

RBA Minutes

Meanwhile, the RBA released the minutes of its last Monetary Policy Meeting which took place at the beginning of the month. The members reported that the Australian economy had continued to grow in the September quarter as economic activity continued to shift away from mining investment to other sectors of the economy. Growth was expected to be between 2–3 per cent over the year to June 2016, before rising to 2¾–3¾ per cent over the year to June 2017 while the forecast for GDP growth towards the end of the forecast period had been revised down slightly.