BOJ begins govt bond buying under new program

TOKYO - The Bank of Japan on Monday began the process of buying 1.2 trillion yen ($12.13 billion) long-term government bonds under its new monetary easing program to inject large amounts of money into the market.

In its program announced last Thursday, the BOJ plans to buy a total of 6.2 trillion yen worth of government bonds with maturities of over five years in five rounds of market operations this month, kicking off its asset buying process to achieve a 2 percent inflation goal in two years.

Following the BOJ's announcement of the start of bond purchase on Monday, government bond futures surged in the afternoon, prompting the Tokyo Stock Exchange to suspend trading briefly to settle the confusion.

In the new framework, the BOJ has terminated its asset-purchase program for unified bond buying through market operations, and decided to purchase more than 7 trillion yen government bonds every month.