The Bank of Japan (BoJ) left its key short-term interest rate unchanged at -0.1 percent at its April meeting and kept the target for the 10-year government bond yield at around zero percent, as widely expected. At the same time, the central bank revised its forward guidance, saying it expected to keep the current extremely low levels of short-term and long-term interest rates for an extended period of time, at least through around spring 2020.