With Monday marking six months since Kazuo Ueda becoming governor of the Bank of Japan, attention is now being paid to when the central bank can start normalizing its monetary policy, which is now very accommodative.
Wage growth trends in next year's shuntō spring labor-management negotiations at private-sector companies will be closely watched as an important factor for predicting whether the BOJ can begin policy normalization, analysts say.
While the U.S. and European central banks are moving to tighten their monetary policies, the BOJ maintains its ultraeasy stance, including setting a negative interest rate on part of financial institutions' current account deposits at the bank.