First time in 17 years! Japan announces interest rate hike

The Bank of Japan concluded its two-day monetary policy meeting on March 19 and decided to lift the negative interest rate policy. The Bank of Japan set its policy interest rate in a range of 0% to 0.1%. This is the first time the Bank of Japan has raised interest rates in 17 years since February 2007.

At the same time, the Bank of Japan also announced that it will cancel the purchase of ETFs and real estate investment trusts (REITs), but will continue to purchase Japanese government bonds, with the scale basically remaining the same as before. In terms of inflation, the Bank of Japan expects the inflation rate to exceed 2% in fiscal 2024.