BOJ Governor Ueda’s comments at news conference

(Reuters) -The Bank of Japan kept interest rates steady on Friday but decided to start selling its holdings of risky assets, taking another step forward in phasing out remnants of its massive stimulus programme.

Two of the BOJ’s nine board members dissented to the central bank’s decision to keep short-term interest rates at 0.5% and proposed, unsuccessfully, to hike borrowing costs to 0.75%.

Following are excerpts from BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda’s comments at his post-meeting news conference, which was conducted in Japanese, as translated by Reuters:

GRADUAL TIGHTENING IF GROWTH, INFLATION STAY ON TRACK

“Real interest rates remain very low. If our economic and price forecasts materialise, we will continue to raise interest rates in accordance to improvements in the economy and prices.”

BOJ TO MONITOR TARIFF IMPACT

“There is high uncertainty over the impact of each country’s tariff policy. As such, we will scrutinise without any pre-set idea overseas and domestic economic conditions as well as market developments.”

(Reporting by Leika Kihara; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)