Bank of Japan gets ‘ideas man’ to chart tricky path from negative rates

Kazuo Ueda is seen as neither a dove nor a hawk on monetary policy, with analysts suggesting he would base decisions on economic and market conditions

In his final appearance at the Bank of Japan in April 2005, Kazuo Ueda said he considered himself lucky to have been a board member at “an extraordinarily difficult time”, as the economy battled a financial crisis and persistent deflation.

Now about to return almost two decades later, Ueda faces an equally daunting but different challenge: preparing to lead a pivot from the longstanding ultra-loose monetary regime that has left the Bank of Japan as the last major central bank clinging to negative interest rates, while its global peers tighten policy to rein in soaring inflation.