Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda will fail to reach his goal of stable 2% price growth during his term, after what will have been more than a decade of stimulus to stoke inflation, according to the bank’s latest forecasts.
Even with an economy expected to show a faster recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, a slew of rising commodity costs and global expectations for accelerating inflation, the BOJ still couldn’t find enough positive factors to see price growth averaging 2% by the end of March 2024.
The central bank released its latest projections after leaving unchanged its interest rate and asset purchase settings, as had been widely expected. While it now sees stronger economic growth of 4% in the year started April and 2.4% the following year, it cut its inflation forecast for the current fiscal year to just 0.1%, citing cheaper mobile phone bills.