Bank of Japan lifts all regional economies view

The Bank of Japan lifts its view on all nine regional economies Monday supported by firm domestic demand including spending and housing investment, with signs of improvement in employment and income, local media reported. The word "recovery" was used to describe eight regions in the assessment, according to the central bank's quarterly "Sakura Report" on regional economies released after a meeting of the BOJ' s branch managers. The report indicated that the economic recovery has started to spread from urbanized areas to regional economies, led mainly by firm domestic demand such as consumer spending, increased housing and public investment. Governor of BOJ Haruhiko Kuroda said earlier the day that the country's economy is "recovering moderately." He expected the economy would continue recovering moderately backed by a virtuous cycle of production, income and spending. Kuroda also expressed his confidence on achieving the central bank's 2 percent inflation target to beat deflation and vowed to keep intact its ultraeasy monetary policy until the desired level can be sustained, referring to the bank's large-scale monetary easing introduced in April this year. This was the first time since April this year that all nine regions upgraded their economic assessment. In its last report released in July, eight of the nine regional economies upgraded their assessment.