The Bank of Japan decided in its meeting that ended this morning, Friday, April 18, to keep monetary policy unchanged, as expected, by keeping the current negative short-term interest rates at -0.10%, in addition to leaving the range for the yield of ten-year bonds to move plus or minus 0.5%.

The bank is buying exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for 12 trillion yen and Japanese real estate investment J-REITs for 180 billion yen.

In the first meeting of the new bank governor, Ueda, he indicated that he is expected to conduct a review of monetary policy in the coming period, stressing that interest rates are expected to remain at current levels for a long time.

The bank’s expectations came that inflation rates will rise to 1.8% this year, compared to its previous expectations of 1.6%. The bank expects core inflation to reach 2% next year, while the Japanese economy is expected to grow by 1.4% this year, compared to 1.7%. In previous estimates, by about 1.2% in the next year.

The yield on Japanese treasury bonds for ten years rose to 0.467% today, while the Japanese yen fell by more than 100 points against the US dollar, to test 134.90 levels.