TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - A board member of the Bank of Japan said monetary easing was expected to last even longer and it was important to implement measures that encouraged the active lending attitudes of financial institutions, the minutes of the April meeting showed Friday.
At the April meeting, the board called for relaxing the conditions for the commercial paper and corporate bonds and a few members expressed the view that the bank should expand the range of eligible collateral and increase the eligible counterparties.
At the meeting, the board removed the limit for government bond purchases. Policymakers said they will not hesitate to take additional easing measures if necessary after closely monitoring the impact of coronavirus, or Covid-19 pandemic.
In the subsequent meeting in May, the bank had introduced a new lending program to help financing small and medium-sized firms.
Some policymakers said possibility that the impact of the spread of Covid-19 would last and that it would be necessary for the Bank to continue to support financing mainly of firms for quite a long period.
Early this week, the bank raised the size of the coronavirus lending program to JPY 110 trillion from JPY 75 trillion.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
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