Bank of Japan's 74-year-old Governor Kazuo Ueda has been hospitalized for medical treatment and will miss the June 15 to 16 policy meeting, the central bank said on Wednesday. It is the first time for the governor, who chairs the BOJ's policy discussions, to miss a scheduled meeting since the central bank began deciding policy under the current arrangement in 1998.
The governor will submit a written statement on his view on policy but will not participate in next week's vote, the BOJ said in a statement. Ueda is expected to remain in hospital for about two weeks getting treatment for an infected liver cyst, work remotely and attend the next July 30 to 31 policy meeting, the central bank said.
The central bank is widely expected to raise interest rates next week to levels unseen in three decades to counter the plunging yen, crashing bond prices and reverse soaring inflationary pressures from the Iran war.
Ueda's hospitalization is unlikely to affect next week's decision, with a rate hike highly anticipated, but it will complicate the BOJ's communication about what may come next, said Mari Iwashita, executive rates strategist at Nomura Securities.
"With Ueda's absence, the BOJ may decide not to send clear signals on the future rate path. Given uncertainty on how long it may take for the governor to fully recover, it's also become more unclear on whether the BOJ would hike again this year."
The BOJ said that Deputy Governor Ryozo Himino will preside over the rate review in place of Ueda, while the other deputy governor, Shinichi Uchida, is set to host the post-meeting press conference.
The announcement follows one the BOJ made in late May that its Deputy Governor Uchida had been discharged from hospital after recovering from leukaemia treatment.
The yen was roughly steady on the day against the dollar, which traded at 160.5, a level traders watch closely as it has triggered official intervention in the past.
Since taking control of the BOJ in 2023, Ueda has spent the first half of his tenure dismantling the remnants of his predecessor's massive stimulus as rising commodity and energy costs and intensifying labor shortages propelled inflation above the BOJ's 2% target.
The BOJ is now at a critical juncture as it moves away from withdrawing stimulus in baby steps towards fighting inflation - something it has not done for decades.
Ueda's hawkish speech earlier this month underscored the BOJ's changed narrative that led markets to near fully price in the chance of a June rate hike, yet which saw no upside for the yen. At the previous meeting in April, three of the BOJ's nine board members already voted in favor of hiking its short-term policy rate to 1% from 0.75%, and since then two more, Junko Koeda and Kazuyuki Masu, called for a near-term rate hike.
However, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, known as an advocate of loose fiscal and monetary policy, has voiced reservations over the BOJ's rate-hike plans (because like every other politicians, she is focused on the "wealth effect" first and foremost, even if it means galloping inflation).
Some analysts said Ueda's health issue may offer Takaichi an opportunity to influence the BOJ policy including by selecting his successor if the governor were to step down. Yet according to Norihiro Yamaguchi, senior economist at Oxford Economics in Tokyo, such a scenario now appeared unlikely.
"That said, it is also true that Takaichi is likely to appoint a more dovish person if she were to appoint a new governor," he said.