In my speech today, I would like to share some thoughts on Japan's deflation that started from the late 1990s, when Mr. Camdessus served as the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The inflation rate in Japan started to decline after the burst of the asset bubble in the early 1990s.
The economy fell into deflation in the late 1990s, in the sense of a sustained decline in prices, and this deflation persisted for about 15 years. Such chronic deflation used to be regarded as a phenomenon unique to Japan. However, most advanced economies have been experiencing low inflation and low interest rates since the global financial crisis.