Given economic developments in Japan, where prices and inflation expectations have not risen easily, the Bank considers it necessary to maintain a positive output gap for as long as possible by keeping interest rates at sufficiently low levels for a prolonged time, in order to achieve the price stability target. Some measures that I outlined earlier also are based on such thinking.
In this way, central banks always consider the most appropriate monetary policies for their respective situations, with a view to achieving their objective of price stability. This does not only apply to Japan. For instance, the U.S. Federal Reserve has been proceeding with monetary policy normalization for the past few years, such as through incrementally raising its policy interest rate.