The government moved to deny any significance Friday in the gap between its economic growth estimates and those of the Bank of Japan.
The BOJ said Thursday real gross domestic product is expected to fall 2.0 percent in fiscal 2009 from a year earlier, the fastest pace of contraction since the end of the war. The figure was well below the government's projection that real GDP will remain almost flat in the year through March 2010.
The BOJ also said the economy could shrink 1.8 percent in the current fiscal year through March, against a 0.8 percent contraction forecast in December by the Cabinet Office.