IGI Logo

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) on Tuesday said it bought a record 135,989 billion yen ($1.02 trillion) in government bonds in fiscal 2022, almost double the amount a year earlier.

To counter increased bond sales in the market caused by its yield control policy, the BOJ actively bought 10-year and other government bonds in the year through March, the largest amount on record, topping the previous high of 115,800.1 billion yen marked in fiscal 2016, Xinhua news agency reported.

The purchase amount expanded about 63 trillion yen from fiscal 2021 and about 1.5-fold from the 88,025.6 billion yen in fiscal 2013, when outgoing BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda took office and embarked on a massive monetary easing policy, the data showed.

Under its yield curve control program, the BOJ sets short-term interest rates at minus 0.1 per cent while guiding 10-year Japanese government bond yields around zero percent.

Last December, the BOJ announced a shift in its ultra-loose monetary policy, raising the yield on the 10-year Japanese government bond as high as 0.5 per cent from a previous cap of 0.25 per cent.

However, the move failed to stem speculative bond selling.