(7th March 2016) Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s nomination of Makoto Sakurai, an obscure 70-year-old economist, to the board of the Bank of Japan signals his determination to ensure that the central bank supports Mr. Abe’s stimulative economic policies. Japan, which has the world’s third-biggest economy, has been in the economic doldrums for 25 years and successive governments have tried to pull the nation out of them.
Mr. Abe will host the G7 Summit May 26-27. He is a winner of The Boston Global Forum’s World Leader in Cyber-Security Award.
“Mr. Sakurai has extensive experience as a researcher at government-affiliated think tanks … and he has repeatedly applauded Abenomics (stimulative fiscal and monetary policies) in his economic speeches.” Naoki Iizuka, an economist at Citigroup in Tokyo, told the Financial Times.
“Assuming other conditions remain unchanged, we think the appointment would make it easier for the BoJ to implement additional easing measures,” Mr Iizuka added.
“The BoJ has recently suffered setbacks in its quest to break Japan free from two decades of stagnant prices and drive inflation to 2 per cent. Weakness elsewhere in the world economy has led to a strengthening of the yen, potentially hitting Japan’s exports and appetite for business investment,’’ the newspaper reported.
The leaders at the G7 Summit will discuss weakness in the world economy and efforts to fend off an international recession that Chinese economic weakness and the European refugee crisis, among other problems, may threaten in coming months. The Boston Global Forum has been collaborating with G7 Summit planners as part of its BGF-G7 Summit Initiative.