JAPANESE Finance Minister Taro Aso said late Sunday his country’s government will increase investment in Asian infrastructure at a meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), according to Kyodo News.

    Aso did not immediately disclose the size of the investment, according to Kyodo. The move could put Japan at loggerheads with China, who is also setting up a new development lender devoted to infrastructure projects in Asia.

    Aso said he wants to set up a new framework for financial cooperation between the ADB and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, Kyodo reported.

    “We want to encourage infrastructure investment that will contribute to high-quality economic growth in Asia,” Aso said, according to Kyodo.

    The ADB is holding its annual meetings in Baku, Azerbaijan. One question that is hanging over the event is how the ADB will cooperate with the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

    China has said 57 countries have signed up to become founding members of the AIIB, but so far the United States has chosen to remain outside the bank, seen as a rival to the U.S.-dominated World Bank.

    Japan, which has a lead role at the ADB, has also chosen to not joint the AIIB, citing concerns that its lending practices may not be transparent.

    Meanwhile, Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said he will not hesitate to adjust the central bank’s quantitative easing program if there is a delay in reaching its underlying inflation goals, Jiji News reported yesterday.

    Kuroda, who spoke on the sidelines of an Asian Development Bank meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, said the expected timing of inflation meeting the BOJ’s 2 percent price target had been pushed back to the first half of fiscal 2016, Jiji reported.

    A decline in oil prices and several other factors led to the delay, Jiji quoted Kuroda as saying.

    The BOJ was forced April 30 to push back the timing of its inflation target after falling oil prices and lackluster consumer spending saw inflation grind to a halt.

    When the BOJ made this announcement April 30, Kuroda said he saw no need to ease policy because a narrowing output gap between the economy’s output shows that consumer prices should start rising again.

    However, two members of the BOJ board objected, saying inflation will not reach 2 percent even by early 2018.

    Many private-sector economists also speculate that the BOJ could ease policy again later this year by expanding purchases of government debt or risk assets.

    (SD-Agencies)