The Bank of Japan (BOJ) has implemented zero interest rate policy. The decrease in the interest rate was expected to help the recovery of the Japanese economy. The interest rate was already very low and analysts are questioning its effectiveness. Due to the collapse of the economic bubble, the Japanese economy became sluggish and suffered from six trillion dollars of debt. The increase in government bonds caused the loan rate to increase. This also caused the yen to appreciate and hurt Japanese export companies because the shares of Japanese export companies were increasingly sold off. Since the Japanese economy is largely supported by Japanese export companies, this situation worked against Japan. In January 1999, the Japanese government issued twice as many government bonds as usual. Shortly thereafter, the BOJ decided to reduce the interest rate to zero in the short-term money market. As a result, life insurance companies, which previously lent money to banks and earned money from their own interest, were forced to go out of business in the short-term money market. Life insurance companies started buying government bonds instead. Due to the increased demand for government bonds, the value of government bonds remained the same even though the government issued too many of them. As a result, the interest rate did not increase and the money supply did not decrease. The zero interest rate policy was successful to some extent this time, but the interest rate cannot be reduced more than zero when the value of government bonds falls next time. . Furthermore, most companies have not taken loans from banks to invest in new facilities, even if the interest rate is zero. Most companies had to downsize their organization and reduce employees and corporate bonds to survive during the recession. Even if they started new businesses and produced new goods, Japanese consumers would not buy such things.