Some of you may know that the Bank of Japan introduced a new monetary policy called Quantitative and qualitative monetary easing (QQE) at the Monetary Policy Meeting held on April 3 and 4, 2013. So I would like to take this opportunity to speak to you about our policy to promote understanding of the situation of the Japanese economy. II.
The features of quantitative and qualitative monetary easing (QQE) and the transmission mechanism  First of all, I would like to point out that Japan has suffered from a long-standing negative output gap and mild deflation over nearly the entire period since the second half of the 1990s.