A year after he struggled mightily to control Major League Baseball's official ball while pitching for Japan's national team, Yuki Matsui said Tuesday he has turned that corner this spring by making an attitude adjustment. Unable to command the MLB ball used in the World Baseball Classic last year, Samurai Japan manager Hideki Kuriyama benched the left-handed closer after he had thrown just one inning. Undeterred by that experience, Matsui joined the San Diego Padres in the offseason and will begin his first MLB season in Seoul against the National League West-rival Los Angeles Dodgers on Wedn...
Kyodo News
The end to the Bank of Japan's eight-year-long negative interest rate policy is a double-edged sword for average citizens, who may find mortgages less affordable but benefit from higher interest on savings and cheaper imported goods on the back of a stronger yen. Variable rate mortgages will likely be impacted by the central bank's first rate hike in 17 years, while 10-year fixed-rate mortgages have already been trending upwards due to the BOJ's gradual adjustments to its monetary easing policy over the past two years. The majority of home buyers in Japan currently opt for a variable rate loan...
Kyodo News
The number of foreign visitors to Japan rose 89.0 percent in February from a year earlier to about 2.79 million as it continued to rebound from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, government data showed Tuesday, although visitors from mainland China only showed a limited recovery. The figure represents a 7.1 percent rise from the same month in 2019 when there was no impact from the pandemic, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization. The largest number of travelers came from South Korea at 818,500, up 14.3 percent from pre-pandemic levels, followed by those from Taiwan at 502,20...
Kyodo News
Local South Korean fans at games ahead of Major League Baseball's season-opening series in Seoul have all but adopted Japanese two-star Shohei Ohtani as one of their own. It is a shift that would have seemed improbable 18 years ago, when Korean fans taunted Japan's biggest star, Ichiro Suzuki, during the hotly contested 2006 World Baseball Classic. "Shohei Ohtani is my role model because he is very kind to the fans, and has very brilliant skills," said Seoul resident Dong An Hwan after leaving Monday's game between Ohtani's Los Angeles Dodgers and South Korea's national team. All around Seoul'...
Kyodo News
Japan's top government spokesman on Tuesday expressed hope that the Bank of Japan will work together with the government to combat decades-long deflation, after the central bank overhauled its unprecedented monetary easing framework. "We hope that the BOJ will continue to closely communicate with the government and manage monetary policy in a proper manner," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said at a press conference. Earlier in the day, the BOJ scrapped its negative interest rate policy, and decided at its two-day meeting to guide short-term interest rates within a range of zero and ...
Kyodo News
Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda said Tuesday further rate hikes will depend on how the economic and price situations develop, but that aggressive hikes will be unlikely given the current environment. Speaking at a press conference after the BOJ decided to end its negative interest rate policy with its first increase in 17 years, Ueda said the decision to depart from unorthodox monetary policy reflects the BOJ's growing confidence about the prospect of the 2 percent inflation target being achieved stably and sustainably. The BOJ also scrapped its program to keep long-term Japanese government ...
Kyodo News
The U.S. dollar climbed past 150 yen Tuesday in Tokyo on yen selling fueled by expectations that the Bank of Japan will likely maintain an accommodative stance despite ending its negative interest rate policy. Stocks erased earlier losses and ended higher, with the Nikkei benchmark finishing at a two-week high above the 40,000 threshold, as a weaker yen boosted export-related issues. The dollar climbed by around 1 yen after the BOJ's widely expected decision, which marks a major shift from the central bank's powerful monetary easing policy that had been in place for years, while it noted accom...
Kyodo News
The following is a chronology of major events related to the Bank of Japan's monetary policy. February 2007 -- BOJ raises policy rate to 0.5 percent from 0.25 percent. October 2008 -- BOJ cuts interest rate to 0.3 percent after U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapses. October 2010 -- BOJ shifts to zero interest rate policy by guiding overnight call rate within range of zero percent and 0.1 percent. March 2013 -- Haruhiko Kuroda becomes BOJ chief. April 2013 -- BOJ introduces "quantitative and qualitative easing" as part of "Abenomics" policy mix. It vows to double monetary...
Kyodo News
The U.S. dollar briefly climbed near the 150 yen line Tuesday in Tokyo after the Bank of Japan decided to end its negative interest rate policy as widely expected by the market. The U.S. currency, trading in the lower 149 yen range in the morning, rose to around 149.90 yen after the BOJ announcement.
Kyodo News
The Bank of Japan on Tuesday decided to scrap its negative interest rate policy, in a significant step away from the central bank's unprecedented monetary easing framework of the past decade that was intended to end deflation.
Kyodo News
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