The Bank of Japan maintained its record monetary stimulus as Governor Haruhiko Kuroda seeks to spur inflation and announced plans to improve transparency. The central bank will continue to expand the monetary base at an annual pace of 80 trillion yen ($650 billion), it said in a statement on Friday, as forecast by all 35 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The BOJ will increase the frequency of its economic outlook reports and release assessments of each board member, starting next year. It will cut the number of policy meetings to eight a year, in line with the US Federal Reserve. Sluggish export growth is the latest risk to a recovery in the economy.
