Japan's new BOJ board members signal potential policy change

Jul 19 (Nikkei) - The government said Tuesday it will appoint Hajime Takata, an economist who has warned of the side effects of bold monetary easing, and Naoki Tamura, a veteran banker, as board members at the Bank of Japan.

Some market participants see the choice of Takata as foreshadowing a potential shift from its pursuit of powerful monetary easing that has continued in recent years before Prime Minister Fumio Kishida chooses a successor to Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, whose term ends next April. Takata and Tamura will serve five-year terms starting Sunday.

Takata, 63, will replace Goshi Kataoka, an economist known as a reflationist who has pushed for more monetary easing to spur economic growth.

Takata, chairman of the Global Research Center at Okasan Securities Co., started his career at the predecessor bank of Mizuho Bank and is also an economist who worked for the Mizuho Research Institute, currently Mizuho Research & Technologies. He took the current post at the think tank in January 2020.

Takata has raised questions about the adverse effects of years of monetary easing and has written a book on how to exit the accommodative policy.

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