‘Bazooka-wielding’ BoJ chief up for 2nd term
tokyo — Japan’s government nominated Haruhiko Kuroda for a second term as central bank governor on Friday, handing the veteran finance chief more time to battle deflation and kick-start the world’s No.3 economy.
Kuroda’s nomination was among those submitted to the parliament in a document seen by reporters, and had been widely expected. Handpicked by Shinzo Abe to steer the former economic powerhouse out of a dangerous cycle of falling prices, Kuroda has guided the key monetary plank of the prime minister’s vaunted “Abenomics” economic policy.
Now 73, the ex-president of the Asian Development Bank is on course to become the longestserving Bank of Japan (BoJ) governor if he completes his second five-year term.
Kuroda took the helm in March 2013 with a mandate to deploy what was called a monetary “bazooka” to stoke life into the moribund Japanese economy. He has overseen a policy of ultra-aggressive monetary easing, adopting in January 2016 the BoJ’s first-ever negative interest rates, effectively charging lenders to park their cash at the central bank.
The BoJ has also pledged to keep the yield on 10-year government bonds around zero by buying as many as necessary.
A perennial optimist in the long-running war against deflation, Kuroda once famously invoked the spirit of Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up. —