Masaaki Shirakawa, the governor of the Bank of Japan, on Friday hit out against government criticism that the central bank had not sufficiently loosened policy in Japan.

"There has been some criticism that the Bank has not implemented sufficient monetary easing, which is based on the argument that the relative increase in the Fed's balance sheet has been greater than that in the Bank's. Such criticism shows a complete misunderstanding of the facts," he said, in his strongest comments yet against