TOKYO, Feb 16 (Yonhap) – Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda said Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made no specific policy requests in their first one-on-one meeting since her Liberal Democratic Party secured a landslide victory in the general election.
Ueda met Takaichi for about 15 minutes at the prime minister’s office on Monday afternoon, the Nikkei and public broadcaster NHK reported. “We exchanged views on the general economic and financial situation,” Ueda told reporters afterward, declining to elaborate on the substance of the talks. Asked whether the prime minister had requested anything on policy, he replied, “Nothing in particular.”
It was the second individual meeting between the two since Takaichi took office in October last year, and the first since the ruling party’s overwhelming win in the House of Representatives election.
Earlier in the day, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara, referring to the schedule for the meeting, said at a regular news conference that “the government and the Bank of Japan are always in close communication, and the timing was set in light of each side’s agenda,” suggesting it was part of routine coordination rather than a signal of imminent policy change.
Takaichi has long been seen as a supporter of the late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s “Abenomics,” which combined aggressive fiscal spending with ultra-loose monetary policy. Since taking office, however, she has refrained from commenting directly on monetary policy, instead stressing the need for a “responsible, proactive fiscal policy.”
Economists note that such a stance typically implies higher government spending financed by increased bond issuance, a combination that can put downward pressure on Japanese government bond prices, push up yields and weigh on the yen through an expanded supply of both bonds and currency.
In the months following her inauguration, financial markets appeared to reflect those expectations: the yen weakened and government bond prices slipped, while Japanese equities rallied.
Despite the LDP’s decisive victory, which some investors had expected to reinforce those trends, recent market moves have been more muted. The yen has unexpectedly firmed, and Japanese government bond prices have held relatively steady.
The dollar rose to around ¥157 in early February but has since retreated, with the exchange rate trading in the ¥153 range on Monday. Government bond yields have shown limited reaction to the election outcome, suggesting investors are waiting for clearer signals on the balance between Takaichi’s fiscal ambitions and the BOJ’s path toward normalizing monetary policy.
For now, Ueda’s insistence that there were no “special” requests from the prime minister is likely to be read as a sign that the central bank intends to preserve its policy independence even as the new administration beds in after its electoral triumph.
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