BlockBeats report: On June 11, as the Bank of Japan is set to hold its policy meeting on June 15–16, an unexpected development has caused fluctuations in market expectations regarding communication. On June 10, the Bank of Japan announced that its 74-year-old governor, Kazuo Ueda, has been urgently hospitalized due to an infection from a liver cyst and is expected to be unable to attend next week’s meeting, though he will express his position via a written statement. Since the Bank of Japan established its current policy decision-making mechanism in 1998, no governor has ever missed a regular policy meeting.
It should be noted that the current market consensus strongly anticipates a 25-basis-point rate hike, with the probability on Polymarket reaching 98%. If the rate is raised as expected at this meeting, any indication regarding the pace of future hikes could become a key variable in the foreign exchange market during the post-meeting press conference.
According to Reuters and other media outlets citing analysts, if Ueda’s health issues persist, it could create room for the Prime Minister to influence the Bank of Japan’s policy direction in the future, particularly regarding the selection of a new governor—if a change in governor occurs, the successor must be nominated by the Prime Minister.