Bank of Japan (BoJ) board member Asahi Noguchi said on Thursday that the “focus now is on the pace at which the policy rate will be adjusted and at what level it will eventually stabilize.” Additional quotes: • Essential for BoJ to maintain ultra-loose monetary policy, seek balance in labour supply and demand. • Japan is seeing wage hikes unseen in the past via spring wage negotiations. • Essential to continue to maintain appropriate balance between labour supply and demand through the continuation of its accommodative monetary policy to achieve the 2% price target. • Japan must achieve positive wage-inflation cycle ... (full story)

Bank of Japan board member Asahi Noguchi said on Thursday that the pace of adjustment in short-term policy rate of the central bank will be slow and made at a pace that cannot be compared to that of other major central banks. A former academic, Noguchi was among two dissenters in the BOJ's nine-member board in the bank's decision last month to end eight years of negative interest rates and other remnants of its massive stimulus programme. (full story)