With inflation in Japan remaining below target despite a recent pick up, the country’s central bank is in no hurry to tighten its monetary policy, analysts said.

Even as its peers in the U.S. and Europe begin to wind down stimulus, the Bank of Japan is expected to release a Tuesday statement outlining its decision to hold interest rates steady. The announcement, coming at the end of the central bank’s two-day policy meeting, will also address asset purchases and its growth outlook.

“We expect price pressures to strengthen only slowly and we therefore remain convinced that the Bank will be in no position to tighten policy anytime soon,” Marcel Thieliant, senior Japan economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a note.

Thieliant, like the majority of analysts polled by Reuters, expected the BOJ to leave both the policy rate and yield target for 10-year government bonds unchanged until 2019.

Japan’s economy has grown for six consecutive quarters with the momentum likely to sustain, but the country’s 2 percent target for inflation remains elusive — core inflation was just 0.7 percent in September, according to official data.

“This Halloween, the BoJ will neither trick nor treat; just staying the course,” economists at Mizuho wrote in a note.

Source: cnbc china
'Neither trick nor treat': The Bank of Japan is expected to keep the status quo