Inside the walls of the Bank of Japan, there’s a sense of relief as new boss Kazuo Ueda inches toward policy normalization with the minimum of fuss — an approach that couldn’t be more different from his predecessor’s dramatic debut.
Back in 2013, Haruhiko Kuroda unleashed "shock and awe” policies to shake a lethargic economy out of deflation. Now, with inflation having racked up 16 months above the central bank’s 2% target, Ueda has done more than many insiders thought possible to prepare the ground for exiting the world’s boldest monetary experiment.
BOJ officials view Ueda’s scholarly communication style as the most obvious difference from the previous governor, according to people familiar with the matter. Where Kuroda doggedly stuck to script, using set phrases that reiterated the need for stimulus, Ueda tends to give thorough and sometimes divergent answers to questions fired at him by journalists or lawmakers.