Comments by BOJ deputy governor Masazumi Wakatabe
- Difficult to tell at the moment how big the impact will be
- But BOJ will make sure to take necessary monetary policy steps as needed
Yeah, the PMI readings from earlier today don't make for good reading. Notably, the services sector saw output fall by the sharpest since April 2014 with the tourism sector being adversely affected by the coronavirus impact.
The details of the report above also show that total new sales for services in Japan fell for the first time since July 2016. Given the present situation in China and Japan respectively, I wouldn't expect a pickup in the services sector any time soon.
