For a sense of the challenges Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda faces in weaning the world's fourth-largest economy off monetary stimulus, look no further than his birthplace.
Makinohara, a breezy surf town in Shizuoka Prefecture that once thrived on a now-declining tea industry, exemplifies disparities between Japan's struggling rural areas and its bustling megacities. It featured this year in a widely publicized list of places on track to vanish due to depopulation.
Shortly after Ueda's elevation in April 2023, the soft-spoken 73-year-old talked about the "very serious challenge" rural areas posed for Japan's recovery. Since then, the BOJ has begun to unwind massive stimulus that propped up the economy for decades. It delivered the first interest rate hikes in 17 years on the back of national data showing rising wages and consumer demand. The bank is expected to raise rates again by year-end.
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