Nakamura says it's premature to change ultra-soft policies now

On Wednesday, board member Toyoaki Nakamura declared that now it’s too early to change the ultra-soft monetary policy. According to him, the unstable economy needs numerous stimuli.

Nakamura admits that keeping interest rates low for too long has hurt the profit of monetary institutions. The benefit of central bank stimuli continued to outweigh the costs.

At a press conference, he said that it isn’t the time for changing the monetary policy. The recent spike in inflation was provoked largely by commodity prices, not by more expensive services.

Nakamura added that the main thing is the probability of further inflation. He isn’t yet sure that it will exceed the central bank's 2% target for the next fiscal year.