TOKYO: The Bank of Japan Friday extended its relief measures designed to support corporate finances amid the coronavirus pandemic for six months until the end of September 2021.

“Japan’s economy has picked up, but the pace of improvement is expected to be only moderate while vigilance against the novel coronavirus continues,” the central bank said in a statement issued after a two-day monetary policy meeting.

“In this situation, financing, mainly of firms, is likely to remain under stress for the time being,” the BOJ said.

The BOJ also said it will assess the current monetary easing measures in an effort to achieve its 2 percent inflation goal. It said it will report the findings likely at a policy meeting in March next year.

But the central bank said it will not change its broad framework of “quantitative and qualitative monetary easing with yield curve control.”

The BOJ’s board voted 8-1 to maintain its current monetary easing policy. The central bank will keep its short-term policy interest rate at minus 0.1 percent and guide 10-year government bond yields around zero percent.

In March, the BOJ introduced a program to extend interest-free loans of up to one year to commercial banks. At the same time, it expanded its corporate bond and commercial paper purchases.

These relief measures, initially set to expire at the end of September this year, had been extended until the end of March 2021.

JIJI Press