Companies expect consumer prices to rise 1.4 percent a year from now but remain below the Bank of Japan's inflation target of 2 percent, the central bank said in a survey Thursday.
The figure was the same as in the previous survey in December, indicating corporate views on inflation have not changed despite the BOJ's aggressive "quantitative and qualitative" easing scheme. The BOJ's goal is to achieve the inflation target in fiscal 2015, which began Wednesday.
The most recent survey, taken in March, also said the companies forecast inflation to hit an annual rate of 1.6 percent within three years, unchanged from December, and remain there after five years, down from 1.7 percent in the earlier survey.