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Investing.com-- The Bank of Japan is behind the curve in managing inflation and is likely to hike interest rates soon, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg on Wednesday.
Bessent’s comments were in the context of U.S. Treasury yields, which he said were being underpinned by rising long-term yields in Japan and Germany, both of which are major U.S. Treasury holders.
“The Japanese have an inflation problem… there’s definitely leakage,” Bessent said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
He said that he had spoken to BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda, adding that “(the BOJ is) behind the curve. So they’re going to be hiking.”
Bessent’s comments contrast those from Ueda, who has repeatedly dismissed the view that the central bank was too slow in raising rates and was lagging high inflation.
Ueda has also signaled that the BOJ will hike rates if inflation continues to increase in line with its outlook.
Sticky food prices and strong wage growth have kept Japanese underlying inflation well above the BOJ’s 2% target since at least 2022, a trend that saw the BOJ hike rates for the first time in over a decade in early-2022. Since then, the central bank raised rates two more times, but marked an extended pause this year amid uncertainty over U.S. trade tariffs and Japanese politics.
Recent data also showed a cooling in Japanese inflation, raising some doubts over whether the BOJ had enough headroom to raise interest rates further.
The BOJ’s reluctance to raise rates has in part been attributed to causing sustained weakness in the Japanese yen, which in turn has driven up import costs and underpinned some facets of inflation.