The Bank of Japan said Tuesday it had decided to maintain aggressive monetary-easing measures to prop up the world's third-largest economy and overcome chronic deflation, dpa reported. The central bank also decided to extend its special loans for one year to encourage banks to spur lending to businesses with growth potential and support the economic recovery. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the bank's governor Haruhiko Kuroda vowed to pull the country's economy out of 15 years of deflation. In April, the central bank introduced its monetary-easing policy with the aim of achieving 2-per-cent inflation within about 2 years.
