Japan’s Central Bank keeps discount rate at negative level

The Bank of Japan (central bank) has again kept the discount rate at a negative level - minus 0.1%, Report informs referring to the statement of the regulator following the March meeting.

The Japanese Central Bank introduced a negative refinancing rate - at minus 0.1% - in January 2016.

As part of the decision, the regulator also plans to buy the required amount of government bonds and continue to target the yield of 10-year government bonds at a level close to zero. At the same time, the Central Bank set a range of fluctuations in the yield of ten-year government bonds of plus and minus 0.5 percentage points from the target level.

The regulator also maintained annual buybacks of exchange traded funds (ETFs) at about 12 trillion yen ($87.802 billion) and assets of real estate investment trusts (J-REITs) at about 180 billion yen ($1.317 billion).

The central bank will keep outstanding commercial paper (CP) at about 2 trillion yen, and corporate bonds will be redeemed at the same pace to return to 3 trillion yen.

Japan’s central bank will continue to expand the monetary base until the annual inflation rate (for all goods except fresh food) exceeds 2% and remains stable above the target.