China’s Industry Threatens Entire Global Economy, France Warns

It is our great pleasure to welcome distinguished speakers and guests to our 29th BOJ-IMES Conference. We would like to thank you all for your participation. I would also like to thank my old friend, John Taylor, who was the very first Mayekawa Lecturer in 2008, for coming back to our conference to deliver his second Mayekawa Lecture later. While we hold our research conference almost every year, this year's conference is unique in that it is held as part of our "Broad Perspective Review" of monetary policy. The review aims to further deepen our understanding of various unconventional monetary policy measures over the past 25 years and to gain insights that will be useful for future policy conduct. This conference will cover two main themes: "Price dynamics" and "Effects of conventional and unconventional monetary policy instruments." We very much look forward to lively discussions with you today and tomorrow to gain further insight into these themes. To set the stage, let me start my remarks with the recent changes in our monetary policy framework, followed by my reflection on the past 25 years condensed into 20 minutes. post: BOJ GOVERNOR UEDA: RE-ANCHORING INFLATION EXPECTATIONS NECESSARY post: BOJ GOVERNOR UEDA: CHALLENGE IS TO DETERMINE NEUTRAL INTEREST RATE

It is my great pleasure to welcome all of you to this conference. As Governor Ueda mentioned in his opening remarks, the Bank of Japan is conducting the “Broad Perspective Review” of our monetary policy over the past 25 years. In short, it has been a battle against persistent deflation and a battle with the zero lower bound. Let me start by giving an overview of the inflation picture during this period. Please look at Chart 1. Japan’s deflation started in the late 1990s and continued for 15 years. The average inflation rate was just minus 0.3%. It was a mild but persistent deflation. To tackle this situation, the Bank introduced the 2% price stability target and Quantitative and Qualitative Monetary Easing, or QQE, in 2013, and a negative interest rate policy and Yield Curve Control, or YCC, in 2016. As a result, we succeeded in achieving a situation without deflation, but the average inflation rate was 0.5%, which fell short of our 2% goal. Recently, inflation rate has risen to around 3%, following the gl post: BOJ DEPUTY GOVERNOR UCHIDA: DEFLATIONARY BATTLE NEAR CONCLUSION post: BOJ DEPUTY GOVERNOR UCHIDA: BANK OF JAPAN OVERCOMES ZERO LOWER BOUND post: UCHIDA: CHALLENGE REMAINS TO ANCHOR 2% INFLATION post: BOJ'S UCHIDA: HIGHER MENU COSTS, TOGETHER WITH MILD INFLATION, HAVE SLOWED THE PACE OF PRICE ADJUSTMENT