Officials at the Bank of Japan have wrapped up a 2-day policy meeting. They have decided to press on with their easing program as they pursue their 2-percent inflation target.
The policymakers concluded their meeting with a pledge to stay focused on short- and long-term interest rates.
They say there will be no change to their negative rate policy for commercial banks. What that means is that lenders effectively have to pay 0.1 percent interest on a portion of the deposits they have at the BOJ.
The target yield for the benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond will stay at around zero percent.
The central bank says it will purchase those bonds at more or less the same pace -- that's about 80 trillion yen, or 700 billion dollars, a year.
