The Bank of Japan met for its first monetary policy meeting last week on Tuesday.

As widely expected, the central bank left the key lending rates unchanged at -0.10%.

The BoJ voted 8 – 1 to hold its target of raising the amount of the Japanese Government Bond holdings at the annual pace of 80 trillion yen.

The central bank reiterated that it will continue to purchase the 10-year bonds so that the yields will remain around zero percent.

The dissenting vote came from BoJ member Kataoka who has been a verbal critic of the BoJ’s policies.

Kataoka said that the central bank should take additional easing measures as it continues to delay achieving the inflation target.

The BoJ also released its inflation expectations which did not change much from its previous forecasts.

According to the central bank, consumer prices in Japan are expected to remain around 1.4% for the fiscal year starting April.

This was unchanged from its outlook from the previous meeting.

For the fiscal year 2019, the BoJ left the inflation expectations steady at 2.3%.

Outlook for core inflation was also not changed at 1.8% for the fiscal year 2019.

Many economists continue to believe that the BoJ’s inflation expectations are far too optimistic.

The BoJ however said that the Japanese economy will continue to grow at a steady pace and above its potential for the fiscal year 2018.

It said that the GDP will rise at a pace of 1.4% in 2018 and 0.7% in 2019.