Bank of Japan freezes key rate for third straight session... to stay at 0.25%

The Bank of Japan, the central bank of Japan, has frozen its key interest rate for the third consecutive time.

The Bank of Japan held a two-day monetary policy-setting meeting until today and decided to keep its key short-term policy rate unchanged from the current 0.25%.

Eight out of nine attendees approved of the decision to freeze, while one opposed it, arguing for the need to raise it to 0.5%.

Earlier, the Bank of Japan raised its key interest rate for the first time in 17 years at its monetary policy-setting meeting in March, ending its negative interest rate policy, before raising the rate to around 0.25% at its July meeting from 0-0.1%.

Since then, interest rates have been frozen for the second consecutive time in September and October, when the financial policymaking meeting was held.

Regarding the Bank of Japan's decision to freeze interest rates, NHK said, "It seems that we have put on hold additional interest rate hikes based on the opinion that we will have to wait and see the impact of Chun-Too's wage increase next year or U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's policy."

In the Tokyo foreign exchange market, the yen/dollar exchange rate once again exceeded the 155 yen level per dollar for the first time in a month due to the spread of yen selling and dollar buying following the prospect of expanding the U.S.-Japan interest rate gap immediately after the Bank of Japan's decision to freeze interest rates.

After a regular meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee on the 18th local time, the U.S. Federal Reserve adjusted its key interest rate to 4.25% to 4.50%, 0.25 percentage points lower than before, but Chairman Jerome Powell said he "remarkably approached the level of neutral interest rates," hinting at a pace of rate cuts.