to technological innovations, particularly in electrical machinery. however, price differentials between home and abroad have narrowed, and the general sense of weak supply and demand conditions for products has receded. thus, the bank will monitor more closely future developments in domestic and overseas supply and demand conditions, as well as in the foreign exchange market. 5. in sum, private demand has firmed in a virtuous cycle as growth in production is accompanied by growth in incomes, supported partly by the yen ’ s depreciation which augmented corporate profits and net exports. thus, although economic growth will slow down temporarily in the first half of fiscal 1997 with the reversal in the stepped - up demand ahead of the rise in the consumption tax, chances are improving that economic recovery turns out to be sustainable. however, the extent of the negative effects caused by the rise in the consumption tax rate, including the reversal in the stepped - up demand, has yet to be confirmed. also, balance - sheet adjustment pressures may continue to restrain the economic recovery. in these circumstances, promoting effective reforms of japan ’ s economic structure is an important ingredient in the efforts to strengthen the basis for recovery in private demand as well as the basis for a medium to long - term growth in japan ’ s economy.

reits from 1 trillion yen and 30 billion yen, respectively, to 3 trillion yen and 90 billion yen. next, i will explain what has occurred as a result of these monetary easing measures, as well as the problems with them. ii. consequences of the monetary policy shift trends in production, consumption, and investment first, i will talk about trends in production, consumption, and investment over the period of around two and a half years since the introduction of qqe. chart 1 shows that, excluding the negative effects of the consumption tax hike in april 2014, investment, in terms of domestic shipments and imports of capital goods, has been expanding as a trend, although it has shown weakness very recently. on the other hand, production and consumption have been stagnant. even excluding such factors as the effects of the front - loaded increase in demand prior to the consumption tax hike and the subsequent decline, it is difficult to say that production and consumption have been recovering steadily. the effects of the consumption tax hike have been particularly large on consumption. the synthetic consumption index – which is a combination of supply - side and demand - side statistics and shows similar movements to consumption on a gdp basis – has not yet surpassed the peak before the front - loaded increase in demand. however, it is natural that a consumption tax hike leads to a decrease in consumption because the hike reduces households ’ real income. what is important is whether real consumption is increasing as a trend despite this phenomenon. the bank ’ s baseline scenario is that consumption has been resilient, but i think that there have been some worrisome developments in consumption very recently, as in production. steady growth in employment in contrast, employment has grown steadily since the shift to qqe. as shown in chart 2, the numbers of both part - time and full - time employees have continued rising. the unemployment rate has been declining steadily. the active job openings - to - applicants ratio, as shown in chart 3, was 1. 24 times in september 2015, marking its highest since january 1992. improvement in employment is spreading across japan, although we have heard voices of concern that the economic recovery has only been observed in major cities. as shown in chart 3, the active job openings - to - applicants ratio has risen in all regions, although it had temporarily declined following the consumption tax hike. it rose to 0. 99 times in september 2015 in hokkaido, where the ratio has been the lowest in japan. bis central bankers ’ speeches increase in