On Thursday, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) had stopped short of announcing its official financial forecast of potentially raising inflation to 2% in two years. Japan's central bank revised the economic growth estimate of the country for 2014 which begins next April to. BOJ estimated that the economic growth rate for 2014 would be at 1.5%. Despite a potential sales tax increase by next year, the world's third largest economy could reportedly continue to grow above its potential.
In the BOJ's semi-annual report, the bank kept core consumer inflation forecasts of 1.9% in fiscal year 2014 and 1.3% in 2015. This excluded increase in sales tax, which was a sign that the goal had been met. Even if BOJ did not forecast an inflation rising up to 2%, some economists worry about expecting too much from the government incentive.
Chief economist at Societe Generale Takuji Aida said, "The BOJ is being too optimistic given there will be a sales tax hike and could be forced to downgrade these numbers later."
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