In its quarterly regional economic report published on Monday, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) maintains the assessment for all of Japan’s nine regions.
Additional takeaways
- All regions said their economies recovering moderately or picking up, picking up moderately..
- Many regions said consumption on firm note for both services, consumption.
- Some regions said output increasing such as for automobiles.
- Many branches said must be vigilant to impact of trade policy as firms in their regions saw heightened uncertainty on impact to output, profits.
- Many branches said can expect broad range of firms in their regions to offer strong pay hikes this year.
- Some regions said smaller firms still cautious of pay hikes due to severe profit conditions.
- Many regions said pass through of high import costs continuing.
- Many regions seeing broadening of firms implementing or considering pass-through of expected rise in labour costs via price hikes.
- Some regions said some firms continuing to cut or maintain prices, increase line-up of low-price goods due to soft consumption.
Market reaction
USD/JPY is back at around 146.00 following these headlines, losing 0.58% on the day.