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The governor of the Bank of Japan warned on Friday that global markets remain volatile, reiterating his pledge to raise interest rates if inflation and economic growth in the country remain stable.

Kazuo Ueda’s comments came after nearly six weeks of extreme market volatility, with the yen weakening to a record low of ¥161 per dollar before reversing course sharply and rising more than 10 percent. Japan’s stock market climbed to a record high before suffering its biggest one-day crash ever.

The central bank ended its negative interest rate policy in March after decades of on-and-off deflation. Ueda told parliament that recent volatility was mainly fueled by concerns about the U.S. economy, rather than the BoJ’s rate hike in late July, but noted that “markets at home and abroad remain volatile, so we will monitor market developments with a very high sense of urgency.”

Despite the recent instability, Ueda told a special parliamentary hearing on Friday that there was “no change” in the central bank’s basic position that it would adjust monetary policy if it was “confident that economic and price developments were unfolding as predicted.”

Ueda’s comments, which sent the yen up about 0.5 percent against the dollar in morning trading, came after he was questioned about the July rate decision, which critics said was accompanied by confusing messages from the central bank.

The 0.15 percentage point hike brought Japan’s short-term interest rate to 0.25 percent, still extremely low by global central bank standards, but a significant step toward Ueda’s hoped-for “normalization” after years of ultra-loose policy.

“Japan’s short-term interest rates are still very low. If the economy is healthy, they will rise to levels that we consider neutral,” said Ueda, who also acknowledged that there is still considerable uncertainty about the ultimate level of Japanese interest rates.

Ueda defended the July rate hike, arguing that its purpose was to “confirm that the economy was broadly in line with our economic and price outlook, particularly the outlook for inflation, which, in terms of underlying inflation, is expected to remain at a level consistent with the sustainable price stability objective of 2 percent in the second half of the outlook period.”

However, during the same Friday session, Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said the government had not yet officially declared an end to deflation. “We believe we have reached a point where conditions are no longer deflationary, but we cannot deny the possibility that the country could slip back into deflation,” Suzuki said.

Although economists had predicted modest rate hikes by the BoJ within 2024, the July move caught many market participants by surprise. In the days that followed, the yen rose sharply against the dollar, leading to a massive unwinding of speculative short yen positions, known as the “carry trade.”

The instability grew over concerns that the U.S. economy was at risk of a recession. Ueda and others faced two and a half hours of questioning by a panel of lower house members on Friday morning. A similar session is scheduled for the upper house on Friday afternoon.