Japan central bank to double monetary base, bond maturities aiming at 2 per cent inflation goal

TOKYO – Japan’s central bank says it will massively expand the country’s money supply to spur inflation as part of efforts to get the world’s third-largest economy out of its slump.

The Bank of Japan ended its policy Thursday vowing to achieve a 2 per cent inflation target at “the earliest possible time.”

It said to do so it would “enter a new phase of monetary easing both in terms of quantity and quality.”

New BOJ Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda has vowed to meet the inflation target within two years, heeding demands from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to once and for all end a long spell of deflation that has hindered investment and economic growth.