According to Jinshi, analyst Aaron Rock believes that the Bank of Japan may abandon its negative interest rate policy at its April meeting, raising interest rates from -0.1% to zero. The risk of them taking early action at their March policy meeting is considerable, but in general, they are expected to wait until April to get as much information as possible about the outcome of the spring wage negotiations. At that time, the Bank of Japan will also release the first quarter short-term survey data. Regarding yield curve control (YCC) and asset purchases, it is believed that the Bank of Japan will want to postpone completely abandoning this policy tool until it decides to exit negative interest rates. Looking beyond the first quarter, the Bank of Japan is expected to emphasize that policy will remain loose, but will be forced to raise interest rates further to 0.25% in the third quarter.