By Leika Kihara and Howard Schneider
JACKSON HOLE, Wyoming (Reuters) – The Bank of Japan can raise interest rates gradually as heightening inflation expectations leave further scope to normalise its ultra-loose monetary policy, the International Monetary Fund said on Friday.
The speed of further rate increases will be “very data-dependent,” as the BOJ will look at the pace at which inflation, wage growth and inflation expectations heighten in normalising policy, said IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas.
Gourinchas said Japan’s inflation is higher than 2% and inflation expectations have started to move towards, or “maybe even a little bit above” the BOJ’s 2% target.
As a result, the BOJ is normalising the extremely loose monetary policy it has had for decades, which is “certainly something that we think is a good development for Japan,” he told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
“Certainly in our assessment, there is scope for further normalisation of monetary policy going forward, and policy rates to increase gradually for some time,” he said.
The BOJ ended negative interest rates in March and raised its short-term policy rate to 0.25% in July in landmark steps away from a decade-long radical stimulus program.
BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda has signaled the bank’s readiness to keep raising interest rates if inflation makes progress toward durably meeting its 2% target, as it projects.
While Japan’s economic growth will slow in 2024 from the fiscal stimulus-driven expansion last year, what is important for the BOJ is not just economic activity but inflation, Gourinchas said.
Unlike other central banks that focused on taming inflation expectations, the BOJ had to pull them up from multiple decades of too-low levels, he said.
“What the BOJ is trying to engineer is a realignment of inflation expectations,” Gourinchas said.
“We’re expecting that as inflation expectations remain stable at their new level close to 2%, the BOJ will start normalising policy rates,” he said.
The BOJ’s surprise July rate increase and Ueda’s hawkish signal jolted financial markets in August, forcing his deputy to offer dovish reassurances that no hikes would come until markets stabilise.
Speaking in parliament on Friday, Governor Ueda reaffirmed the BOJ’s readiness to keep raising rates but with a close eye on the economic fallout from still-unstable markets.
Gourinchas said the recent market turbulence was due to a mix of factors including prospects of higher Japanese interest rates, and weak U.S. jobs data that fueled expectations of faster-than-expected rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.
Thin market trading during the August holiday season, coupled with a massive unwinding of the yen carry trade, also heightened market volatility, he said.
“I think the market overreacted,” he said. “I think a lot of this has been resolved, but we could see other episodes of market volatility as markets are … in a little bit of an uncharted territory” with many central banks starting to ease policy, while the BOJ begins to raise rates, he said.
(Reporting by Leika Kihara and Howard Schneider; Editing by Rod Nickel)
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