Bank of Japan Gov. Masaaki Shirakawa said Monday the central bank needs to focus on making funds available to companies since the benchmark interest rate is close to zero.
"Given that the interbank overnight rate is so low, the focus needs to be placed on how to improve the availability of funds and alleviate the cost of corporate borrowing," Shirakawa said at a business meeting hosted by the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren), the country's largest business lobby.
The BOJ lowered the overnight lending rate on Friday to 0.1 percent from 0.3 percent, the second cut in two months, and offered to buy corporate debt and more government bonds to pump cash into the economy. The central bank has pledged to explore other measures to ease the credit shortage and counter the deepening global recession.