policy board bank of japan confirmed new cases of covid - 19 japan chart 1 global thous. persons ten thous. persons advanced economies emerging economies feb - 21 jun - 21 oct - 21 feb - 22 jun - 22 oct - 22 feb - 21 aug - 21 feb - 22 aug - 22 notes : 1. in the left panel, figures are weekly averages. 2. in the right panel, figures for the united states, taiwan, and hong kong are from the centers for disease control and prevention ( cdc ), the taiwan ministry of health and welfare, and the hong kong centre for health protection, department of health, respectively. all other figures are from the world health organization ( who ). figures for advanced economies are the sum of figures for the united states, the european union, and the united kingdom. figures for emerging economies are the sum of figures for the major economies in the nies, asean, the middle east, and latin america, and for india, south africa, russia, and turkey. figures show 7 - day backward moving averages. sources : ceic ; ministry of health, labour and welfare. chart 2 global growth rates cy 2019 world real gdp growth rate, y / y % chg. cy 2022 cy 2023 cy 2021 [ forecast ] [ forecast ] 6. 0 3. 2 2. 7 cy 2020 2. 8 - 3. 0 advanced economies 1. 7 - 4. 4 5. 2 2. 4 1. 1 emerging market and developing economies 3. 6 - 1. 9 6. 6 3. 7 3. 7 real gdp s. a., cy 2019 = 100 s. a., cy 2019 = 100 japan euro area united states cy 19 cy 19 s. a., cy 2019 = 100 cy 19 note : in the upper panel, real gdp growth rates are as of october 2022. sources : cabinet office ; eurostat ; imf ; u. s. bureau of economic analysis. chart 3 japan's private consumption and disposable income s. a., cy 2019 = 100 consumption activity index ( travel balance adjusted, real ) disposable income, etc. ( sna, real ) cy 19 note : figures for the consumption activity index ( cai ) are based on bank staff calculations. the cai figures ( travel balance adjusted ) exclude inbound tourism consumption and include outbound tourism consumption. the figure for 2022 / q3 is that for july. " disposable income

, if a wage - price spiral takes place, this will likely cause a sizable increase in medium - to long - term inflation expectations and high inflation could become chronic. for this reason, the european central bank ( ecb ) has also been aggressively raising policy rates. in the meantime, the united kingdom appears to be moving into a tough situation. on top of the surge in energy prices, it has encountered a grave labor shortage amid the pandemic, due in part to a decline in immigrants following brexit. this has been accompanied by a surge in wages and is beginning to induce a wage - price spiral. until lately, the bank of england ( boe ) was out ahead of the federal reserve in implementing aggressive monetary tightening. yet, in late september 2022, the u. k. government announced a large - scale fiscal stimulus package featuring massive tax cuts, and this in turn engendered a sharp interest rate hike. furthermore, even though monetary tightening has pushed up interest rates in the country, the british pound hit its lowest level against the u. s. dollar since the adoption of the floating exchange rate system. to address the market turmoil, the boe is taking action to ensure financial stability by, for example, carrying out temporary purchases of long - dated u. k. government bonds and postponing the beginning of the planned gilt sale operations. such market turmoil was largely unthinkable until quite recently ; i now consider it necessary to keep a close eye on its impact, particularly on the u. k. economy and global financial and capital markets. as i have described, risks to the global financial and economic environment surrounding japan have rapidly become skewed to the downside. crude oil prices, which had seen a surge until lately, have recently shown signs of a decline ( chart 13 ). i believe that this most likely reflects concern over the risk of a slowdown in the global economy. history suggests that there is considerable risk in making a shift toward monetary tightening in such cases where the possibility of " a storm landfall " cannot be ignored. in the current situation where downside risks are significant, i believe that any move to revise the direction of monetary policy toward tightening should be considered with caution. foreign exchange rates next, i will touch on foreign exchange rates. i am closely monitoring the effects of exchange rate movements on economic activity and prices. in light of these movements, let me share what approach i think monetary policy should take. first, monetary