Bank of Japan Gov. Masaaki Shirakawa said Monday the nation's economy is recovering and performing relatively well compared with other economies.
"Recent data suggest that Japan's economy looks like it is about to emerge from that pause," Shirakawa, 61, said at a speech at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo. "As far as short-term economic and financial developments are concerned, Japan's situation is by no means worse than that of other advanced economies."
Japanese government bond yields reached 1.3 percent for the first time since May before Shirakawa's speech on increased optimism toward the U.S. and Japanese economies. While the BOJ expects Japan's slowdown to end this quarter, continued deflation will probably prevent it from increasing interest rates until 2013 at the earliest, 10 of 15 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News last month predicted.