Goldman Sachs pushed up its inflation projections for Japan, driving them further above the central bank’s forecasts and essentially ruling out the possibility of price growth slowing below 2% in coming months.
While Goldman doesn’t expect the Bank of Japan to take action on Friday when its latest meeting concludes, it sees policy tweaks coming in July when the central bank updates its inflation views.
The investment bank’s economists expect Japan’s consumer prices excluding fresh food, a key gauge for the BOJ, to average 2.8% in the year through March, according to a report Tuesday. That’s way higher than a 1.8% forecast the central bank made at the end of April.