Japan's monetary base hits record high by end of 2017

TOKYO, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- Japan's monetary base reached a fresh record high by the end of 2017, up for the 11th consecutive year, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) said Friday.

According to the latest BOJ data, the monetary base at the end of 2017 stood at 480 trillion yen (4.25 trillion U.S. dollars) , rising 9.7 percent from 2016.

The increase rate was the lowest since the BOJ started to bolster liquidity massively in April 2013 as part of its ongoing efforts to achieve its inflation target of 2 percent.

The biggest component to the monetary base, the balance of financial institutions' current account deposits at the BOJ, stood at 368.49 trillion yen (3.26 trillion U.S. dollars), up by 11.6 percent on year.

Banknotes and coins in circulation, two other components to the monetary base, stood at 106.72 trillion yen (943.40 billion U.S. dollars) and 4.79 trillion yen (42.34 billion U.S. dollars), up by 4.2 percent and 1.0 percent respectively, compared to the end of 2016.

The BOJ decided at a policy meeting last month to continue the easy policy until inflation reaches the bank's 2 percent target. Enditem