BOJ keeps ultra-low rates, decides to conduct policy review

TOKYO (Reuters) – The Bank of Japan (BOJ) on Friday kept monetary settings unchanged but revamped its guidance on the future path of policy, and decided to conduct a “broad-perspective” review of its monetary policy.

As widely expected, the BOJ kept intact its short-term interest rate target at -0.1% and that for the 10-year bond yield around 0% at the two-day meeting that ended on Friday.

But it modified its forward guidance by removing reference on the need to guard against risks from the COVID-19 pandemic, and to keep interest rates at “current or lower levels.”

(Reporting by Leika Kihara, Tetsushi Kajimoto, Kantaro Komiya and Kaori Kaneko; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim)