Japan should significantly expand JGB sales to retail investors, lawmaker says

By Makiko Yamazaki and Takaya Yamaguchi TOKYO, Oct 6 (Reuters) — Japan should expand sales of government bonds to households on a much larger scale to create a more stable domestic investor base, prominent ruling party lawmaker Kenji Nakanishi told Reuters on Tuesday. Nakanishi, a former executive at J.P. Morgan Securities, has spearheaded efforts to boost household ownership of Japanese government bonds (JGBs), believing stronger retail demand could help stabilise the market as the Bank of Japan retreats from years of massive bond purchases. "I've been saying for some time that we need to move retail bond sales onto a completely different scale," Nakanishi, an executive member of the Liberal Democratic Party's finance commission, said in an interview. "If sales rise from current 5 trillion yen ($31.63 billion) or 6 trillion yen to 10 trillion yen or 20 trillion yen, that starts to matter." Retail JGB sales totalled 6.16 trillion yen in April-October, up 90% year-on-year, the Ministry of Finance said on Tuesday, already surpassing its 5.9 trillion yen sales target for the entire fiscal year ending in March, as rising yields fuelled household demand. The planned sales to.