BOJ Governor Ueda's Comments at News Conference

BOJ Governor Ueda Discusses Interest Rate Decisions

(Reuters) - The Bank of Japan kept interest rates unchanged on Thursday but one dissenting board member's proposal to push up borrowing costs showed the central bank remains on track to tighten policy early next year.

As widely expected, the nine-member BOJ board voted 8-1 to keep its short-term policy rate unchanged at 0.25% in a sign policymakers preferred to tread cautiously amid uncertainty over U.S. president-elect Donald Trump's economic plans.

Following are excerpts from BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda's comments at his post-meeting news conference, which was conducted in Japanese, as translated by Reuters:

NEXT RATE HIKE

"Real interest rates remain very low. If the economy and prices move in line with our forecast, we will continue to raise our policy rate. As for the timing of adjusting the degree of monetary support, we need to scrutinise various data carefully in reaching a decision." STRENGTH OF JAPAN'S WAGE-INFLATION CYCLE

"We need some more information on the outlook for wages, including the momentum of next year's wage negotiations, to confirm the strength of Japan's wage-inflation cycle."

UNCERTAIN OUTLOOK

"Uncertainty remains on the U.S. and overseas outlook. There's also uncertainty on the incoming U.S. administration's policies."

(Reporting by Leika Kihara; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)