In May, the Bank introduced a facility which provides the markets with Japanese government securities (JGSs) held by the Bank as a secondary source with a view to enhancing the liquidity of JGS markets. The Bank has been making a wide range of efforts to improve the infrastructure of financial markets and will continue to do so. III.
Purchases of stocks held by commercial banks  The Bank started to purchase stocks held by commercial banks from November 2002 to reduce the risk that stock price fluctuations might impact negatively upon the business management of individual financial institutions, potentially resulting in instability of the financial system as a whole.