With financial chiefs from the Group of 20 major economies vowing to boost global growth at their meeting this week, pressure is building on the Bank of Japan to take additional monetary easing steps to invigorate the country's sluggish economic recovery.
BOJ Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda has yet to alert the market to extra steps, saying that the BOJ is on course to meet its inflation target and that the economy is expected to continue its moderate recovery trend.
But economists warn that recent economic data suggests prices are unlikely to rise as much as the BOJ expects, while the second stage of the sales tax hike to 10 percent next year could hamper Japan's return to growth.