BOJ's Kuroda Joins Global Peers in Warning Against Protectionism

(Bloomberg) -- Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said protectionist trade measures can backfire on a country implementing them, joining a chorus of global central bankers warning against a rollback of open trade in the global economy.

The international community agrees on the importance of free trade, Kuroda said at a news conference in Tokyo on Friday, after the central bank kept its monetary policy unchanged. “Protectionist policies have negative implications, such as preventing imports needed for your own country.”

Kuroda said he wouldn’t comment on any individual country’s trade policies, but acknowledged that some see U.S. policy as a risk to the global economy.

Read what other central bankers said in the wake of the U.S. plan to raise tariffs

Kuroda, who formerly led various international divisions of Japan’s finance ministry and later the Asian Development Bank, said he doubted that protectionism would spread widely, but that developments on trade policy could have a major impact on the global economy.

"I’d like to keep watching them carefully," he said.

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