Many members of the Bank of Japan's policy board said last month that the deterioration of the global economy was showing signs of slowing in some places, according to minutes of the board's April 6-7 meeting, released Friday.
But as a whole, overseas economic conditions continued to worsen, and global financial markets remained unstable, the board members said.
They also voiced belief that Japan's economy will likely start recovering as early as the latter half of the current fiscal year, referring to the period from October of this year to March 2010.
"Assuming that expectations about medium- to long-term growth would remain generally unchanged, the economy was likely to start recovering, at the earliest, from the latter half of fiscal 2009 as global financial markets regained stability and overseas economies moved out of their deceleration phase," the minutes said, citing a board consensus.
However, "this projection was attended by a significant level of uncertainty," it said.
At the meeting, the Bank of Japan's policy board took additional measures to help the flagging economy, expanding collateral that can be used for loans. See story on April 6-7 meeting.
The board met more recently on April 30, when it voted unanimously to keep its uncollateralized overnight call rate unchanged at 0.1%, as had been widely expected.
Also that same day, the Bank of Japan reduced its expectations for economic growth in fiscal year 2009 as exports continued to suffer from the weak global economy.
But the central bank also said at the time that it expected overseas economies to start recovering the latter half of the fiscal year.
