joining us is jodi schneider. what can we expect here in terms , are they going to try to make revisions to this 2% inflation target? reporter: right, those are the two questions. the first, there seems to be a greater task then there was earlier. j.p. morgan chase this week said that they are not ruling out using this meeting, although they have advanced their april,ion for easing to and others are saying that there is a greater chance that they would have said just a month ago about easing, but the real question is also the 2% inflation target and moving it. it was already moved twice this in 2015, and if it was to be moved again, that would be three times in a year. the board is really faced with a confluence of factors right now in terms of the strengthening yen and the stock market rout, subdued wage raises, and also the questions about inflation and how are they going to be able to get that kind of inflation, both on the consumer and investor side, that they have not been able to do, so there is a lot of tal

japan governor surprising markets, as you were just saying to we are joined by bloomberg news' jodi schneider in tokyo. saying just days ago that we were not looking a negative rates. was he trying to throw the markets off, or did he make the right choice? jodi: he likes surprises, we know. easebody was thinking to further, we asked that question last month. this month, he is surprised by imposing negative interest rates starting in february on a portion of the current account balances that financial institutions held with the doj. it is tough to tell what the but theotivation was, press conference after the decision was made, he made it clear he will use every tool in his arsenal. this is a tool he has brought out. obviously, there are institutions in europe that are doing this -- switzerland, denmark -- and he is trying to take a page from that. the thing that was interesting also today is just hours before the announcement came, there was some negative data from december before the current market turmoil, therefore production way down, household spending way down. mike: their whole goal, j

jodi schneider joins us live to get us through these numbers. a bit of better news for mr. abbe. december, itth of was a surplus, the third one in 2015. good news. the deficit for the year narrowed significantly as well by 80%. that is showing the right direction. some we just, particularly china in terms of exports. is anis mostly, it improving picture but not entirely. rishaad: were there any other highlights out there? numbers, the december numbers, we did see the eu number, exports remained up 3.1%. u.s. was down 3.4% and china was down more than a percent. the worrisome issue is china with continuing slowness there and is export numbers. also, the yen has been relatively weak on the world stage and that has been helping the export numbers as the yen strengthens, that does affect the export number and on the import side, imports have been cheaper because of oil going down. if oil prices go back up, there is concern on that side. these are good numbers now but there is some reason to not think that they are going to continue in this way particularly with exports in the coming

jodi schneider has more. a big surprise. that is the governor kuroda byword. >> exactly.bout lastl talking month and this month, will they or will they not. this month it is the negative interest rate plan. it would basically impose negative interest rate on part of the current account balances that financial institutions hold in the central bank. it was a big surprise. no one expected this. the timing coming as a surprise. the boj pushed back their target for inflation heading. worse than in japan? come before morning the announcement from the boj, we had several pieces of data that showed things were much weaker in december, before the recent global stock market turmoil with industrial production lower and exports off and household spending down. all of the kinds of things that governor kuroda has been concerned about, we have been seeing. things were weaker in december. with the turmoil in the markets, there is a lot of concern for january as well as what is happening with china affects japan's exports. the yen has been strengthening of late and this message is to tame