TOKYO—Rising prices of daily necessities could hurt household sentiment, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said on Friday, suggesting that mounting inflationary pressure is emerging as a risk to the country’s fragile economy. Japan’s core consumer inflation rose 2.1 percent year-on-year in April, exceeding the central bank’s 2 percent target for the first time in…

TOKYO—Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda on Wednesday warned the recent rise in inflation driven by higher import costs could hurt the economy, stressing the central bank’s resolve to keep monetary policy ultra-loose. Consumer inflation is likely to clearly accelerate as energy prices rise sharply and companies steadily pass on higher raw material costs to…

TOKYO—The Bank of Japan kept up its relentless quest to defend a key yield cap by offering to buy unlimited amounts of 10-year government bonds on Tuesday, underscoring its resolve to keep policy ultra-loose and putting downward pressure on the yen. The BOJ’s intervention raised the stakes for policymakers in the world’s third-largest economy as…

TOKYO—The Bank of Japan (BOJ) maintained its massive stimulus on Friday and warned of heightening risks to a fragile economic recovery from the Ukraine crisis, reinforcing expectations it will remain an outlier in the global shift towards tighter monetary policy. Rising fuel and commodity prices blamed on the war in Ukraine could drive up consumer…

TOKYO—The Bank of Japan must keep monetary policy ultra-loose as inflation remains well below that of other economies, Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said, brushing aside the view it could follow in the footsteps of more hawkish U.S. and European peers. Mounting inflation risks have prompted central banks across the globe, including the U.S. Federal Reserve and…

TOKYO—The Bank of Japan should consider further steps to make its ultra-easy monetary policy more sustainable, such as steepening the yield curve by targeting a shorter maturity than the current 10-year yield, an International Monetary Fund executive said. Such a move would be on top of steps the central bank took in March last year…

TOKYO—Some Bank of Japan policymakers saw consumer inflation briefly accelerating towards their 2 percent target as price pressures build up on changing corporate price-setting behavior, a summary of opinions at the bank’s January meeting showed on Wednesday. Many board members, however, stressed the need to maintain an ultra-loose monetary policy to support a fragile economy…

TOKYO—Japan’s core consumer prices rose 0.5 percent in December from a year earlier, increasing for a second month in a row at the fastest pace in nearly two years in a sign of broadening inflationary pressure from rising fuel and raw material costs. The recent inflation pick-up drew the attention of Bank of Japan (BOJ)…

TOKYO—The Bank of Japan on Tuesday raised its inflation forecast for the fiscal year beginning in April and said risks to the price outlook were evenly balanced, nodding to recent signs the commodity-driven rise in inflation was broadening. As widely expected, the central bank kept unchanged its -0.1 percent target for short-term interest rates and…

TOKYO—The Bank of Japan offered on Wednesday its most optimistic view of the country’s regional economy in more than eight years, in a sign of its confidence that a recent resurgence in coronavirus infections would not derail the country’s fragile recovery. The upbeat assessment heightens the chance the BOJ will revise up its growth and…