The Bank of Japan decided at its meeting that ended this morning, Friday, March 18th, to keep monetary policy unchanged, as the bank members voted 8-1 to keep the current negative interest rates at -0.10% in addition to maintaining the 10-year bond yield at 0 % .

The bank is buying ETFs at 12 trillion yen and J-REITs at 180 billion yen, while the bank is buying CP bonds and corporate bonds with a maximum of 20 trillion yen until the end of March 2022.

The bank’s monetary policy statement stated that the members of the bank are less optimistic compared to the January meeting when the economy was clearly recovering, but the risks of the Ukraine crisis, which destabilized the financial markets, raised the uncertainty about the Japanese economy and escalated the risks to the economic recovery through high prices of raw materials and lack of The stability of financial markets.

The Japanese yen continues to trade at its lowest level since February 2016 against the US dollar at 118.80 levels.