Bank of Japan Keeps Policy Unchanged

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) has kept its current policy of monetary easing unchanged, while revising its view of the country's economic prospects upward.

    After its monetary policy meeting, BOJ stated that Japan's economy has continued its moderate recovery trend, adding that the country's exports had picked up due to a moderate pace of growth in the economy overseas.

    Japan's exports edged down 0.4% year-on-year to 5.96 trillion yen ($50.9 billion) in November, the Finance Ministry said on Monday in a preliminary report. The reading was far better than the 10.3% fall in exports in October.

    Japan posted a goods trade surplus of 152.51 billion yen ($1.30 billion) in November 2016, compared to 387 billion yen deficit in November 2015. Shipments are expected to grow on the back of the yen's recent fall against major currencies as a weaker yen makes Japanese goods more competitive overseas and improves repatriated revenues.