Bank of Japan may ease further, say small but growing number of economists

The Bank of Japan's next move will be to loosen its already super-easy monetary policy, a small but growing contingent of economists say, amid risks of a slowdown and scepticism inflation will hit the central bank's target.

Most economists polled by Reuters -- 29 of 38 -- still expect the BoJ's next step would be to scale back its massive stimulus programme.

But nine analysts -- up from five in last month's poll -- said the central bank would instead boost stimulus with steps such as buying even more assets to flood the financial system with cash and tweaking the wording in forward guidance.

US-China trade friction and an upcoming sales tax hike in October are casting a pall over the economy.

“If the risk of a recession rises, the BoJ will likely ease further,” said Hiroshi Ugai, chief economist at JPMorgan Securities Japan, one of the nine.

Nearly all economists polled -- 33 of 36 -- said they disagreed with the BoJ's insistence that inflation was maintaining momentum toward reaching 2 per cent. The latest Reuters poll was taken on Feb 7-20.

Last month, the central bank cut its inflation forecasts but maintained the status quo in its massive stimulus programme as Governor Haruhiko Kuroda warned of growing economic risks from trade protectionism and faltering global demand.

Many economists who forecast the central bank will scale back stimulus said that will happen sometime in 2020 or later.

Shigeto Nagai, head of Japan economics at Oxford Economics, said the BoJ has already missed a chance to normalise policy, before the sales tax hike, due to rising global uncertainty.

“The BoJ will stick to the current yield curve target at least until they confirm the impact of consumption tax hike is limited as expected,” he said.

Among possible steps for normalisation, the BoJ could expand its 10-year Japanese government bond yield fluctuation from a 0.2 percentage point band and raise its yield target from around zero per cent, economists said.

The median in the poll projected the nationwide core consumer price index, which includes oil products but not fresh food costs, would rise 0.8 per cent in both fiscal 2019, which starts in April, and fiscal 2020.

That is lower than the BoJ, which sees core CPI rising to 1.1 per cent in the coming fiscal year and 1.5 per cent in fiscal 2020.

The BoJ will place emphasis on core CPI projections to include the effects from the planned sales tax hike when the bank releases its next outlook report in April, the Nikkei business daily reported earlier this month.

Previously the central bank focused on core CPI, excluding the tax hike effects, but policymakers think those will be offset by government measures such as free education, the report said.

Economists projected Japan's economy will contract 2.5 per cent in the October-December quarter, due to the sales tax hike but eke out 0.7 per cent growth in all of fiscal 2019.

For the following fiscal year, growth is expected to slow to 0.5 per cent, the poll showed.

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