The Bank of Japan (BOJ) on Monday eased its monetary policy at an extraordinary policy board meeting on Monday.

The Japanese central bank decided to keep its key interest rate steady at 0.1 percent at the meeting.

The BOJ will also expand its lending program of three-month loans by unveiling a fresh 10 trillion yen six-month low-interest loan program to financial institutions. Consequently, the total loan amount will reach 30 trillion yen (about 350.55 billion U.S. dollars).

The meeting came at a time when the government is widely expected to announce an outline of a new stimulus package possibly as early as Tuesday in a bid to parry the yen’s rise.

BOJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa cut short a trip to the U.S. and returned to Tokyo on Sunday, a day earlier than originally scheduled, for the hastily convened gathering.

The country remains under pressure to safeguard its fragile recovery, with weak gross domestic product growth of an annualized 0.4 percent in the second quarter pointing to a slowdown.

Economists suggest that such measures will help to lower interest rates in the market place and steady the yen at a rate that isn’t pummeling Japanese exporters.

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