BENGALURU (Reuters) – The Bank of Japan intends to maintain easy monetary policy and the government’s energy assistance programme will hold down inflation, the central bank’s governor Haruhiko Kuroda told a news conference at a G20 event on Thursday.
The governor expects inflation to be below 2% for fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2024, adding that Japan is no longer in a deflationary environment.
Given that import prices have fallen, the Japanese government’s energy assistance will aid in holding down inflation, Kuroda said.
India is hosting the first major G20 event under its year-long presidency at the summer retreat of Nandi Hills near tech hub Bengaluru.
Kuroda added that the Group of 7 nations believes that the global economy remains better than expected.
The G7 has raised their economic support to Ukraine to $39 billion for this year and urged securing an IMF programme for the country by the end of March, according to a statement released by the bloc’s current president Japan.
(Reporting by Aftab Ahmed, David Lawder and Kiyoshi Takenaka, writing by Tanvi Mehta; Editing by Krishna N. Das and Miral Fahmy)
