BOJ likely to cut inflation forecasts until next year

The Bank of Japan is likely to cut its inflation forecasts for this fiscal year and the year to March 2020 at a meeting later this month with price pressures remaining stubbornly weak, people with direct knowledge of the bank’s thinking said.

More than five years after Governor Haruhiko Kuroda embarked on a massive easing policy aimed at stoking 2.0 per cent inflation, the BOJ will likely cut its projection for core consumer prices for this fiscal year to around 1.0 per cent from April’s 1.3 per cent projection, and for next year to around 1.5 per cent from 1.8 per cent, the three sources told Reuters.

They spoke on condition of anonymity as the discussions are private.

The central bank will scrutinise structural factors behind the weakness in consumer prices when it conducts a quarterly review of its long-term growth and price projections, sources have said, Reuters reported.

The core consumer price index, which includes oil products but excludes volatile fresh food prices, rose 0.7 per cent in May from a year earlier, the same rate as April and far below the BOJ’s target of 2.0 per cent.