s roles and that they will work together to overcome deflation and achieve sustainable economic growth. d. making use of accommodative financial conditions : providing a boost through the loan support program given the bank ’ s aggressive monetary easing i described earlier, financial conditions in japan are extremely accommodative both in historical and international comparison. to be specific, in terms of firms ’ funding costs, both short - and long - term average interest rates on new loan contracts have hit 1 percent – an unprecedented level. in terms of households ’ borrowing costs, variable mortgage rates are below 1 percent and even 35 - year fixed mortgage rates are around 2 percent. moreover, financial institutions ’ lending attitude remains accommodative, issuing conditions for cp and corporate bonds remain favorable on bis central bankers ’ speeches the whole, and an environment has been maintained in which households and firms can feel secure that they can gain access to funds. meanwhile, even at a time when there were strong headwinds generated by the great east japan earthquake and the european debt problem, extremely accommodative financial conditions have been firmly maintained. in order for japan ’ s economy to achieve sustainable growth with price stability, it is important that firms and households actually make use of the accommodative financial conditions for funding and increase investment and spending, which in turn will lead to an improvement in the aggregate supply and demand balance. as for recent developments in credit demand, although firms have shown signs of increasing their demand mainly for working capital and funds related to mergers and acquisitions, business fixed investment has been financed from cash flows, indicating that accommodative financial conditions have not been used to the fullest possible extent. to promote full use of the accommodative financial conditions, the bank has established the loan support program, consisting of the fund - provisioning measure to support strengthening the foundations for economic growth ( hereafter the growth - supporting funding facility ) and the fund - provisioning measure to stimulate bank lending ( hereafter the stimulating bank lending facility ). these facilities are offered for your use. 1. the growth - supporting funding facility the growth - supporting funding facility was introduced with the aim of supporting the flow of funds to areas with growth potential. with this facility, the bank provides long - term funds at a low interest rate to financial institutions for their lending and investment to areas that are expected to contribute to strengthening japan ’ s growth potential, such as medical and nursing care ; environment

with low productivity growth, this means higher business costs. chart : the krone has depreciated moreover, the krone depreciated markedly in the period to summer last year. a weaker krone means higher import prices. the krone is now a little weaker than before the monetary policy meeting in september and a little weaker than expected. the depreciation has been particularly pronounced against the us dollar, which has appreciated against many currencies in recent weeks. the dollar appreciated further in the hours following the us election. chart : modest rise in unemployment since we started raising the policy rate, unemployment has edged up from a very low level. at the end of october, registered unemployment was 2. 1 percent, in line with our september projection. unemployment is still a little lower than in the period before the pandemic, and the number of job vacancy postings is high. chart : the policy rate will likely be held at today's level to the end of the year the committee judges that a restrictive monetary policy is still needed to bring inflation down to target within a reasonable time horizon. the committee is concerned with the possibility that if the policy rate is lowered prematurely, inflation could remain above target for too long. on the other hand, an overly tight monetary policy could contract the economy more than needed. when we set the policy rate, we have to balance these trade - offs. the economic outlook is uncertain. the committee will have received more information about economic developments ahead of its next monetary policy meeting in december, when new policy rate forecasts will be presented. 2 / 2 bis - central bankers'speeches