Mubasher: The Bank of Japan (BOJ) said on Wednesday that it would continue its huge monetary easing policy as it eyed 2% inflation, but expected prices to rise at a slower pace than previously estimated.

The policymakers said their short-term interest rate target would be held at minus 0.1%, as commercial banks would still pay interest on part of their deposit at the BOJ.

Policymakers see the world’s third largest economy growing moderately, but they said they would closely monitor the effects of their easing policy with the recent market turmoil, including global financial market sell-offs spurred by concerns over US-China trade scrap.

Meanwhile, BOJ officials trimmed their inflation outlook for the current fiscal year through March to 0.9% from 1.1%, while they lowered their projections by one-tenth of a percentage point to 1.4% for fiscal 2019 and 1.5% for fiscal 2020.

By 8:14 am GMT, the Japanese yen (JPY) fell 0.05% against the US dollar to JPY 113.0700.