The Bank of Japan on Thursday upgraded its assessment for five of the country's nine regional economies compared with three months earlier and used the word recovery for every region on the back of solid consumer spending before the consumption tax increase in April and improvement in employment and income.
It is the first time since April 2005, when the BOJ started the quarterly Sakura Report, that it used the word recovery to assess the state of all of the regional economies.
The BOJ left its assessment of four regions, including Tohoku and the Kanto-Koshinetsu area including Tokyo, unchanged.