The Bank of Japan’s newly appointed board member Junko Koeda did her best to keep various options open over the timing of the central bank’s next interest rate hike as she started her five-year term.

"The fact that there’s a need to carefully watch the economic impacts of positive interest rates doesn’t have implications over whether we should rush toward a rate hike or not,” Koeda said at her inaugural news conference in Tokyo on Wednesday. "I want to earnestly make my considerations, as there is still time until the next meeting.”

Koeda’s approach echoes that of Gov. Kazuo Ueda’s, as the bank looks to raise rates further while being careful not to send a signal regarding preferences on the timing of the next move. Her remarks are likely to keep market speculation alive over the odds of a rate change at the next meeting.

While most economists expect the next rate increase to come in June or July, traders have been looking for potential hints suggesting the move could come at the next policy meeting, which ends on May 1.

Koeda shared the same view as other senior BOJ officials on the level of real interest rates, saying that it’s "significantly” low and signaling that there’s room for further rate increases.

"Various indicators suggest that Japan’s price trend is heading toward the BOJ’s sustainable and stable 2% target,” Koeda said.

Speaking in parliament earlier Wednesday, Ueda reiterated his intention to lift interest rates from the current 0.5% once the BOJ’s economic outlook is realized, without dropping any clear hint on the timing.

The yen was slightly stronger against the dollar following Koeda’s news conference, after weakening in response to Ueda’s earlier remarks. Prior to Koeda’s briefing, Japan’s benchmark 10-year bond yields hit their highest level since 2008 as Ueda kept policy options open by reiterating his basic policy stance.

In a Bloomberg survey earlier this month, some 71% of BOJ watchers said Koeda’s appointment isn’t likely to lead to any clear shift in the BOJ’s policy stance. Another 22% said the personnel change would make the bank more hawkish, while the remainder said it was hard to tell.

Her entry to the nine-member board marks a historic turn in Japan’s efforts to promote diversity in policymaking, by increasing the number of female members to two for the first time.

"This is not only limited to women, but it’s highly desirable that those with diverse backgrounds participate in the halls of decision making,” Koeda said.

Koeda is familiar with some of her new colleagues as she has attended a workshop hosted by the central bank. Her website showed that she worked with Ueda in 2014 on lectures about unconventional monetary policy when Ueda was a professor at the University of Tokyo.

In 2018, a paper authored by Koeda that cited the positive side of raising interest rates from negative levels became the talk of BOJ watchers after it was published on the website of the central bank’s think tank. Her work suggested she would likely support the BOJ’s intention to gradually normalize policy settings.

Given that backdrop, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s decision to handpick her for the board indicates that his government has no major issues with Ueda’s BOJ after the governor scrapped the bank’s massive monetary easing program and raised interest rates three times in the past year.

Her predecessor Seiji Adachi voted in favor of all three interest rate hikes under Ueda.

After earning a doctorate in economics from UCLA, Koeda worked as an economist at the International Monetary Fund and a think tank for the Finance Ministry before becoming a professor at Tokyo-based Waseda University.

The monetary policy meeting from April 30 to May 1 will be the first Koeda will attend.