The Bank of Japan carried out an emergency market operation on Thursday, purchasing ¥1.3 trillion ($12 billion) of government bonds in a bid to curb rising long-term yields.

The central bank said the operation was aimed at stabilizing the debt market given its recent volatility.

The BOJ has been guiding the yield on the 10-year government bond, the benchmark of long-term interest rates, at around zero percent.

The yields rose as far as 0.070 percent the previous day as expectations grew that stimulus planned by the government to mitigate impacts of the virus crisis would lead to a sharp increase in new bond issuance.

The BOJ bought bonds worth ¥200 billion with one to three years to maturity, ¥300 billion with three to five years to maturity and ¥700 billion with five to 10 years to maturity. It also spent ¥100 billion on bonds that will mature in 10 to 25 years.

The BOJ decided at its policy-setting meeting Monday to pump more liquidity into the financial system by starting a new loan program for companies and boosting exchange-trade fund purchases as well as other measures.

It is also conducting dollar funding operations in cooperation with other major central banks in the United States and Europe, providing $30.3 billion to markets in a three-month operation earlier in the week to ease a global shortage of dollar financing.

The ECB said Wednesday it would launch a 750 billion euro ($682 billion) bond-buying program until the end of the year in its latest effort to mitigate the impact of the virus on the bloc’s economy.