A government representative called on the Bank of Japan to ensure corporate funding at the central bank's Oct. 13-14 policy meeting during which its policy makers were discussing when to end the bank's emergency funding measures, according to the meeting's minutes released Thursday.

The government expected the BOJ "to carefully examine market developments and take appropriate measures in order to facilitate the flow of funds to firms, because they continued to face a severe business environment and difficulty in funding," Keisuke Tsumura, parliamentary secretary of the Cabinet Office, was quoted as saying.

At the policy meeting, the BOJ deferred a decision on what to do with its emergency corporate funding measures it introduced earlier this year to help corporations cope with the global financial crisis.

At a subsequent policy meeting held last Friday, the BOJ decided to let its corporate debt purchasing program expire at the end of this year as scheduled, while extending the expiration date for other support programs -- a temporary scheme of providing banks with unlimited low-interest loans -- by three months to March 31 next year.