Takako Masai: Economic activity, prices and monetary policy in Japan

Speech by Ms Takako Masai, Member of the Policy Board of the Bank of Japan, at a meeting with business leaders, Hyogo, 6 December 2017.

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

I. Developments in economic activity and prices

I would like to start my speech with a look at developments in economic activity and prices. At the Monetary Policy Meeting held on October 30 and 31, 2017, the Bank of Japan published the Outlook for Economic Activity and Prices, or the Outlook Report. In this report, the Bank presented its projections for Japan's economic activity and prices through fiscal 2019.

I will explain developments in economic activity and prices by presenting the main content of the Outlook Report.

A. Overseas economies

Let me first touch on developments in overseas economies. The Bank's assessment is that overseas economies have continued to grow at a moderate pace on the whole.

In terms of the outlook, advanced economies are projected to continue growing steadily, and a recovery in emerging economies is likely to take hold on the back of the steady growth in advanced economies and the effects of policy measures taken by emerging economies. A similar view was presented in the World Economic Outlook (WEO) released in October 2017 by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In recent years, the IMF has often revised downward the projections for global growth, but from early fiscal 2017, it has revised them upward.