TOKYO, March 18 (Reuters) - Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said on Wednesday the BOJ had limited room left to raise its buying of government bonds and a planned increase in buying was not aimed at dealing with any increase in issuance.
Shirakawa also said he had no plan to ditch the central bank's internal rule that caps its JGB holdings below the amount of yen notes in circulation.
The BOJ said on Wednesday it would increase its buying of government bonds by 29 percent to 21.6 trillion yen ($219.3 billion) a year, but it kept interest rates just above zero. (Reporting by Hideyuki Sano and Tetsushi Kajimoto)