TOKYO, April 14 (Reuters) – Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said on Tuesday she and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi had told the trade minister to avoid commenting on the Bank of Japan’s monetary policy, stressing decisions on policy tools should be left to the BOJ.
On Sunday, Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Ryosei Akazawa said nL4N40V00C an April hike “could be among options” to support Japan’s currency as the country’s real interest rates remained quite low.
When asked about the comment, Katayama said “the trade minister is not in charge of monetary policy and under the law, decisions on the BOJ’s specific policy tools should be left to the central bank itself.”
“Prime Minister and I also told Mr. Akazawa when we met him at the meeting yesterday of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy that we would like him to refrain from making remarks on the matter,” she said at a regular media conference.
When asked later on Tuesday about his conversation with Katayama, Akazawa declined to comment. He repeated the government’s position that specifics on monetary policy are up to the BOJ to decide.
Once seen as a strong possibility, a BOJ rate hike nL4N40T1P9 in April is turning into a fainter prospect as fading hopes of an end to the Middle East conflict keep markets volatile and muddle the outlook for a fragile economy.
Discussing the recent rise in long-term Japanese government bond yields, which briefly climbed nL1N40W005 to 2.49%, their highest level in nearly three decades, Katayama said Japan’s debt management policy rests on close dialogue with markets and that bond auctions would be conducted as normal.
(Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki; Additional reporting by Kantaro Komiya; Editing by Sonali Paul and Thomas Derpinghaus)
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