Haruhiko Kuroda: Overcoming deflation and after Speech by Mr Haruhiko Kuroda, Governor of the Bank of Japan, at the Meeting of Councillors of Nippon Keidanren (Japan Business Federation), Tokyo, 25 December 2013. *  *  *  Accompanying charts can be found at the end of the speech.
Rates on very small loans, which can be taken as a proxy for loans to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), have declined by around 200 basis points. The significant improvement in funding conditions for SMEs is especially encouraging as these companies provide two-thirds of total private sector employment in the euro area. Heterogeneity of lending rates across countries has also fallen sharply.