Bank of Japan maintains its current policy

After its meeting, Bank of Japan stated that it would maintain money-market operations so that the monetary base would increase at an annual pace of about 60 trillion-70 trillion yen. It corresponded almost $610 billion to $710 billion, unchanged from its previous target.

Board members today raised their 2014 expectation for the core consumer price gauge to a gain of 1.4 percent, from a January forecast of 0.9 percent.