The Bank of Japan maintained its monetary policy stimulus, as widely expected, on Friday.
The policy board, governed by Haruhiko Kuroda, on Tuesday, voted 8-1, to hold the interest rate at -0.1 percent on current accounts that financial institutions maintain at the central bank.
The bank will continue to purchase a necessary amount of Japanese government bonds without setting an upper limit so that 10-year JGB yields will remain at around zero percent.
The bank said in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, global financial and capital markets have been volatile and prices of commodities such as crude oil have risen significantly, and future developments warrant attention.
