Bank of Japan Governor Toshihiko Fukui said the US economy is still likely to achieve a "soft landing" after weak economic data prompted a global stock sell-off.
The stock-price decline was a "healthy correction," Fukui told reporters in Tokyo yesterday after his policy board voted unanimously to keep the key overnight lending rate at 0.5 percent.
Fukui said the Bank of Japan would consider land prices and currencies in addition to economic and price data when setting interest rate policy.
The central bank doubled the key rate last month, saying rates need to be raised gradually as low borrowing costs could spur wasteful investment and asset bubbles.
The governor said that interest rates would stay very low for some time and that policy decisions were based on a close examination of economic data.
The yen has risen more than 2 percent since the Feb. 21 rate increase, partly after the stock-market rout between Feb. 27 and March 5 erased US$3.3 trillion in world market value and prompted investors to sell risky assets and repay yen loans.
Stocks in the US, Japan's biggest export market, slid last week as growing mortgage defaults heightened concern the country's home-loan crisis was spreading.
Fukui said the increase in defaults in subprime mortgages probably doesn't signal a change in trend.
The central bank has faced political pressure not to raise interest rates too quickly and with inflation still very subdued, it is expected to move cautiously with further monetary tightening.
Analysts said that political sensitivities linked to the July elections in Japan's upper house of parliament mean that the bank's next increase in interest rates is unlikely to come before the second half of this year.
"Minus a full-throttle slowdown in the US economy, the market is likely to grow hopeful of another rate hike after the release of January [to] March [GDP] data and once the upper house elections enter the picture in May-June," Morgan Stanley economist Takehiro Sato said.
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
A former television news host and six military personnel — active and retired — have been indicted on espionage charges, Kaohsiung prosecutors said yesterday. Lin Chen-you (林宸佑), a former CTi News host and YouTuber, last year allegedly made videos at the direction of a Chinese agent criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party’s recall campaign, the Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office told a news conference in Kaohsiung. He allegedly received 4,325 tether coins for the videos from an unidentified person surnamed Huang (黃), believed to be an agent of a hostile foreign power, they said. Lin, also known as Ma Te (馬德), has a show named
‘CRITICAL MOMENT’: Any delay in the passage of the remaining funds would weaken Taiwan’s security and play into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party, the AIT said While welcoming the Legislative Yuan’s approval of a supplementary defense budget, the US Department of State said that further delays to Taiwan military spending are a “concession” to China. The remarks came after the legislature on Friday passed the budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of military equipment from the US, with total spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.82 billion). One package allocates NT$300 billion for arms sales approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, while the other sets aside NT$480 billion for an arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The
RSS