Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda speaking after the release earlier showing an economic contraction in Japan in Q3 2021:
Kuroda:
- Japan's economic recovery being delayed somewhat
- stagnation in Japan's consumption has been prolonged
- exports, output hovering on weak note
- service consumption to remain under pressure from covid, temporary slowdown in exports, output likely to continue
- mechanism for Japan's economic recovery remains in place
- the BOJ will take additional easing steps without hesitation as needed, with eye on pandemic's impact on economy
- Japan's economic recovery likely to become clearer in 1st half of next year
- Japan's economy likely to recover levels seen in 2019 in 1st half of next year
- demand for precautionary liquidity has eased substantially
- BOJ will maintain powerful monetary easing as inflation projected to miss 2% target for time being
- Japan's consumer inflation likely to gradually accelerate to around 1% toward mid-next year
- corporate funding strain appears to have become limited to sectors still suffering from weak sales, small and medium-sized firms
- inflation expectations of households, firms rebounding
- wage growth accelerating mainly among sectors suffering from labour shortages
- supply bottlenecks are likely to be resolved in coming months as southeast Asian factories gradually resume production
- the chip shortage could take time to be resolved as capex is needed to meet strong demand
- must be vigilant to a risk of a hit from pronounced global supply constraint slowdown in China's economy
I'm not seeing anything surprising or of much note in these comments.
