With the Bank of Japan’s monetary policy meeting approaching, the market is highly anticipating an interest rate hike, and Governor Kuroda’s health has become a variable in the market.

BlockBeats News, June 11 — Ahead of a policy meeting scheduled by the Bank of Japan for June 15 to 16, a sudden development has caused market expectations regarding communications to fluctuate. On June 10, the Bank of Japan said that Haruhiko Ueda, 74, was urgently hospitalized due to a liver cyst infection and is expected to be unable to attend next week’s meeting, but will express his personal position through a written statement. Since the Bank of Japan established its current policy decision-making mechanism in 1998, there has never been a case in which the governor missed a routine policy meeting.

It should be noted that current mainstream market expectations are pointing to a 25 basis point rate hike, and the probability of the related event on Polymarket has reached 98%. If the meeting raises interest rates as expected, then any hints about the pace of subsequent rate hikes could become a key variable for the foreign exchange market at the press conference after the policy is announced.

According to analysts cited by Reuters and other media, if Ueda’s health issues continue, it could give the prime minister room to influence the future direction of the Bank of Japan’s policy, especially on the issue of the governor’s successor—once a governor change occurs, the successor must be nominated by the prime minister.