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By ELAINE KURTENBACH,AP Business Writer AP - Wednesday, March 18SHANGHAI - Asia's stock market rally seemed to be running out of steam Wednesday, despite an
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Bank of Japan mulls interest rate cut
AFP - Thursday, October 30
TOKYO (AFP) - - Speculation mounted on Wednesday that Japan's central bank could cut its super-low interest rates this week to tackle a looming recession in Asia's largest economy.
It would be the first such move since March 2001 when the Bank of Japan introduced an unprecedented policy of almost free credit to try to pull the economy out of the deflationary doldrums.
The possibility of a rate cut sent Japanese stocks soaring for a second straight day, with the Nikkei index finishing up 7.7 percent.
The Bank of Japan "is leaning toward" reducing its key rate by 25 basis points to 0.25 percent following the recent plunge on the Tokyo stock market, the influential Nikkei business daily reported without naming its sources.
"The falling stock market is a very strong incentive for a rate cut. It is conceivable that the BoJ might reduce the rate to close to zero again eventually," said Tetsuro Okada, an economist at the Japan Research Institute.
Meanwhile Kyodo News reported that the government and ruling coalition agreed on fresh spending of five trillion yen (52 billion dollars) for an additional economic stimulus package, citing coalition sources.
The Japanese economy shrank in the second quarter of this year and there are increasing fears that it is once again in recession, which is usually defined as two straight quarters of economic contraction.
Japanese industrial output rose 1.2 percent in September from the previous month, beating the market expectation of a 0.5 percent rise, official figures showed Wednesday.
But the gain came after a sharp 3.5 percent drop in August and the outlook remained gloomy, with the government forecasting a fall of 2.3 percent in October and a drop of 2.2 percent in November.
The bleak outlook is "another piece of evidence that the Bank of Japan could use to lower interest rates, if they so wish," said Masamichi Adachi, senior economist at JP Morgan Securities.
"The data show that the speed of economic slowdown has accelerated," he said.
Japan's economy relies heavily on exports and the weakness of the global economy is reducing demand for Japanese goods overseas. A stronger yen is also making Japanese exports less competitive.
The dollar, which was trading around 110 yen in August, fell to close to 90 last week, before rebounding to the 97 level in response to the Nikkei report.
But the greenback soon turned lower again as analysts argued that a rate cut would be mostly symbolic in Japan, which already has the lowest borrowing costs of the major economies.
Japan's financial system may be relatively resilient amid the global credit crunch, "but a rate cut would demonstrate that Japan was doing something in coordination with the international community," Okada said.
The Nikkei index has dropped nearly 40 percent over the past three months amid the worst global financial crisis in decades.
The US Federal Reserve was widely expected to deliver another rate cut later Wednesday and markets expect further reductions in Europe as well.
Some analysts argued that an interest rate cut could do more harm than good, partly because it would hit Japanese savers.
"Much of the financial dislocations which have occurred over the past six months are simply reversals of bull-markets bloated on cheap money from Japan," Glenn Maguire, chief Asia economist at Societe Generale, wrote in a note.
"The irony that Japan may actually make money cheaper again as part of the solution should be lost on nobody."
Underscoring the tough business climate in Japan, Sony Corp. confirmed Wednesday that its quarterly operating profit plunged 90 percent, hit by a surging yen, a weak global economy and intense price competition.
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