The Bank of Japan removed a limitation on buying government bonds so that 10-year yields will remain at 0%, and ramped up its purchases of corporate debt to JPY 20 trillion from around JPY 7 trillion, joining central banks around the world in their unprecedented expansion of monetary stimulus to mitigate the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. Meantime, policymakers kept its key short-term rates unchanged at -0.1%.