The Bank of Japan maintained its policy rate unchanged as widely expected at the end of a two-day meeting on Friday after hiking it a month earlier.
The BOJ's new forecasts showed it expects inflation to be around its target of 2 percent until fiscal 2026. For the current fiscal year that began in April, core consumer prices that exclude volatile fresh food are forecast to rise 2.8 percent, up from 2.4 percent projected earlier.
The Policy Board examined the impact of its decision in March to guide short-term interest rates in a range of zero and 0.1 percent, in a major shift away from years of unorthodox monetary easing measures.
