TOKYO (Reuters) -The Bank of Japan will hold a second workshop next month to examine the benefits and drawbacks of the unconventional monetary easing tools used during its 25-year battle against deflation.
The workshop, to be held on May 21, will gather central bank officials, academics and private economists to discuss economic and price trends, as well as monetary policy over the period, the central bank said on Friday.
Upon becoming BOJ Governor in April last year, Kazuo Ueda announced plans for a review to scrutinise the effects and side-effects of the central bank's radical stimulus measures.
Preliminary findings released in January showed that companies were changing prices much more frequently than before, and the public's long-held belief that prices would not rise much in Japan was starting to change.
The BOJ has been conducting nationwide hearings among companies for their views on how its prolonged monetary easing steps had affected their businesses, wage-setting and the broader economy.
The BOJ has said the findings will not have direct implications on the bank's near-term policy decisions.
But central bank officials have said the review will be used to identify which among the tools could be used in the future, and in what way, when the BOJ next needs to ramp up stimulus.
The BOJ ended eight years of negative interest rates and other remnants of its unorthodox policy last month, marking a historic shift away from its focus on reflating growth with decades of massive monetary stimulus.
Japan's decades-long battle with deflation hung heavily over the central bank's deliberations over exiting ultra-loose monetary policy, analysts say.