The Bank of Japan left monetary stimulus unchanged in the final policy meeting of 2017 on Thursday, remaining on cruise control as it waits for a pickup in stubbornly low inflation.
The central bank will continue to target interest rates and buy financial assets to achieve its 2 percent inflation goal, it said. The result was predicted by all 44 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
With Japan's economy continuing to grow at a healthy pace and inflation at least moving in the right direction, there is little pressure on the BOJ to act any time soon. This sets it apart from its global counterparts, with the Federal Reserve hiking interest rates and the European Central Bank moving closer toward policy normalization.