Makoto Sakurai: Economic activity, prices, and monetary policy in Japan

Speech by Mr Makoto Sakurai, Member of the Policy Board of the Bank of Japan, at a meeting with business leaders, Shiga, 1 December 2016.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

I. Economic Activity at Home and Abroad: Recent Developments and the Outlook

A. Overseas Economies

Let me start my speech by talking about developments in overseas economies.

The global economy had been on a gradual decelerating trend for the past few years, recording 3.2 percent growth in 2015 on a year-on-year basis from 4.2 percent in 2011. During this period, advanced economies maintained growth of around 1 to 2 percent, whereas emerging economies slowed to a fair extent, from 6.3 percent in 2011 to 4.0 percent in 2015. This suggests that the global economic deceleration was largely attributable to the slowdown in emerging economies. Amid the heightening uncertainty over emerging economies, global financial markets have shown volatile movements since summer 2015, with the depreciation of currencies and the decline in stock prices mainly being seen in emerging economies.