Bank of Japan working to roll back Kuroda policies

Years into bouts of incentives and stimulus that many analysts, industry experts, and execs have described as “shocking”, the Bank of Japan is working quietly to roll back some of the “radical policies” implemented by its chief Haruhiko Kuroda.

The apex bank is now heralding interesting new measures which some say will make it easier for the central bank to effectively dispose of its oversight duties while also ensuring it can carefully tow the lines between that and politics.

At the forefront of the country’s complex policy is deputy governor Masayoshi Amamiya. According to reports, the career central banker is the frontrunner in the race for a successor, as Governor Kuroda’s term nears its end in 2023.

In what has been referred to as the BoJ’s most decisive swing in policy direction,  the lender indicated in March that it would no longer commit to a fixed program of risky asset purchases, which was a vague and coded way of telling the public that it would dial down its monetary support.

Officially, the changes in March were positioned as though the intention was to extend the lifespan of Kuroda-led stimulus policies and the “Bazooka” asset-buying program, which were considered brave and decisive in an economy that need to be lifted out of deflation.

However, sources close to the issue indicated that the real aim of those changes was to open the policy up for planned and phased rollbacks in the near future.