may 10, 2017 bank of japan outlook for economic activity and prices and monetary policy speech at a meeting held by the naigai josei chosa kai ( research institute of japan ) in tokyo haruhiko kuroda governor of the bank of japan ( english translation based on the japanese original ) introduction it is my great honor to have the opportunity to address you today at the naigai josei chosa kai. at the monetary policy meeting ( mpm ) held at the end of april, the bank formulated its projections for japan's economic activity and prices as well as risk factors through fiscal 2019, and released them in the outlook for economic activity and prices ( outlook report ). today, i would like to talk about the bank's outlook for japan's economic activity and prices as well as its thinking behind the conduct of monetary policy, while outlining the outlook report. i. current situation of japan's economic activity and its outlook stronger global economic growth momentum let me start by talking about global economic developments. in the first half of 2016, pessimistic views about the global economy prevailed amid turbulence in global financial markets against the background of the slowdown in emerging economies and uncertainties regarding those economies. with the benefit of hindsight, however, it appears that the global economy hit bottom in the first half of 2016. since mid - 2016, the global economy has continued to improve steadily, and its growth momentum now seems to be strengthening further. in particular, a global improvement in the manufacturing sector and trade activity has become clear. for example, an indicator of the overall business conditions in the manufacturing sector has continued on an improving trend in advanced economies as well as emerging and commodity - exporting economies ( chart 1 ). in addition, with regard to the world trade volume - - calculated by adding up imports in each country - - a pick - up in the trade volumes has been spreading globally, mainly for asia and the united states ( chart 2 ). the world trade volume had tended to grow at a slower pace than world economic growth for a long period since the global financial crisis, and such deceleration in growth of the world trade volume is called " slow trade. " as regards the background to this, structural factors such as a pause in the expansion of the global supply chain have been pointed out, in addition to a cyclical decline in demand. the recent global improvement in the manufacturing sector and trade activity draws attention as this may suggest a change is finally

lexparency. org / eu / tfeu / art _ 130. - 2in a well - functioning democracy, important public policy decisions should be made, in almost all cases, by the elected branches of government. grants of independence to agencies should be exceedingly rare, explicit, tightly circumscribed, and limited to those issues that clearly warrant protection from short - term political considerations. with independence comes the responsibility to provide the transparency that enables effective oversight by congress, which, in turn, supports the fed ’ s democratic legitimacy. at the fed, we treat this as an active, not passive, responsibility, and over the past several decades we have steadily broadened our efforts to provide meaningful transparency about the basis for, and consequences of, the decisions we make in service to the american public. we are tightly focused on achieving our statutory mandate and on providing useful and appropriate transparency. 3 sticking to our mandate it is essential that we stick to our statutory goals and authorities, and that we resist the temptation to broaden our scope to address other important social issues of the day. 4 taking on new goals, however worthy, without a clear statutory mandate would undermine the case for our independence. we continue to strive to improve our transparency. over my five years as chair, i have pursued this aim by extending postmeeting press conferences to all fomc meetings and instituting ongoing personal dialogue with legislators. this continuous dialogue goes well beyond the regular testimony, established by statute, in which i report to the congressional committees that have oversight responsibilities regarding monetary policy. although the federal reserve has been independent since its inception in 1914, its dual mandate only became part of the law in 1977 ( see bernanke, 2010 ). the existence of the dual mandate reflects the fact that the federal reserve ’ s monetary policy independence corresponds to operational, or instrument, independence, rather than goal independence. see debelle and fischer ( 1994 ) for an analysis of the distinction between types of independence. - 3in the area of bank regulation, too, the fed has a degree of independence, as do the other federal bank regulators. independence in this area helps ensure that the public can be confident that our supervisory decisions are not influenced by political considerations. 5 today, some analysts ask whether incorporating into bank supervision the perceived risks associated with climate change is appropriate, wise, and consistent with our existing mandates. addressing climate change seems likely to require policies that would have significant distributional and other effects on companies,