. >>> the governor of the bank of japan, masaaki shirakawa, wants to defeat deflation. he says that's one of the main ways to light a fire under this country's cooling economy. the bank of japan decided to boost the size and availability of low-interest loans to financial institutions. the decision came at a regular two-day meeting of the boj policy board that ended on tuesday. the amount of loans available through the central bank's growth supporting fund will increase by 2 trillion yen or more than $24 billion. that brings the total amount of the fund to $67 billion. the boj also decided to extend the deadline for applications for new loans by two years to the end of march 2014. but the central bank left its key interest rate unchanged at around 0 to 0.1%. the bank said it wants to see the effects of the drastic expansion of the asset purchase program it decided to set in motion at its policy meeting last month. boj governor shirakawa says monetary easing as well as funding for growth sectors and smaller firms to boost japan's economy growth will be essential for beat