Yukitoshi Funo: Economic activity, prices, and monetary policy in Japan
Speech by Mr Yukitoshi Funo, Member of the Policy Board of the Bank of Japan, at a meeting with business leaders, Sapporo, 2 August 2017.
I. Recent Economic and Price Developments
A. Overseas Developments
I would like to begin my speech by talking about developments in overseas economies. Business sentiment of manufacturing firms has been on an improving trend on a global basis, and the world trade volume has been recovering. In this situation, overseas economies have continued to grow at a moderate pace on the whole.
As for the outlook, the growth rates of overseas economies are expected to increase moderately. According to the World Economic Outlook Update, released in July 2017 by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the global growth rate is projected to increase from 3.2 percent in 2016 to 3.5 percent in 2017, and to 3.6 percent in 2018.