Both of the effects worked to support the recovery and prompt the restructuring process of debtor companies under the strain of balance-sheet adjustment, through the maintained low interest rates. The price stability anchor implicit in the commitment is not specified in terms of a time frame, but is highly data-dependent, as it is defined by the achievement of positive inflation rates.
Market participants, who once appeared to be skeptical of our scenario of registering a 0.3 percent rise in the core CPI in fiscal 2006, now seem to anticipate the likely end of the current policy regime within one year, as observed in euroyen futures market interest rates. This has led to a pickup in interest rates over a wide range of maturities.