Tackling the long-term structural challenge Finally, I would like to address an issue commonly faced by a number of major central banks in advanced countries and regions: the extremely accommodative monetary environment has not necessarily led to increased domestic demand, such as investment and consumption, as much as had been expected (Chart 27).
Though there are structural factors relating to this issue, their root causes are country- or region-specific and thus different from each other. In the case of Europe, the short-term depressing impact of the fiscal austerity measures and deleveraging of the banking sector, as explained earlier, make it difficult to increase bank lending for the moment.