The Bank of Japan (BoJ) released its interest rate decision on Thursday. The central bank kept its interest rate unchanged at -0.1% as widely expected by analysts. The monetary base target remained unchanged at 275 trillion yen, while the central bank said that it will expand its monetary base at an annual pace of 80 trillion yen as expected by analysts.

The BoJ lowered its inflation forecasts. Inflation is expected to reach 2% target in the fiscal year 2017, while inflation is expected to be 1.9% the fiscal year 2018.

The central bank downgraded its growth forecast for the fiscal year 2016 to 1.2% from 1.5%, and for the fiscal year 2017 to 0.1% from 0.3%.