The Japanese central bank, Bank of Japan kept its monetary policy unchanged on Thursday and upgraded its GDP growth projection. Meanwhile, it slightly cut its inflation projection for 2017 and kept it unchanged for the next year.

Following a series of positive signs in economic activity terms, the Bank of Japan raised its real GDP growth forecasts. It expects the Japanese economy to expand 1.6 percent in the fiscal year 2017 and 1.3 percent in the fiscal year 2018. Both the figures were upwardly revised from the central bank’s earlier forecast of 1.5 percent in 2017 and 1.1 percent in 2018. Meanwhile, according to a Wells Fargo research report, the Japanese economy is expected to expand 1.3 percent in the fiscal year 2017 and 1.2 percent next year.

For the consumer price inflation, the BoJ kept its projection for 2018 unchanged at 1.7 percent. However, its forecast for this fiscal year was cut by a tenth of a percent to 1.4 percent. According to Wells Fargo, Japan’s inflation is expected to come in at 1 percent this fiscal year.

There was certain speculation in the weeks before BoJ’s meeting that the central bank might gice a sign of eventual rate rises. However, the central bank’s outlook statement confirmed that the current regime of policy solutions will continue to be appropriate “with a view to maintaining the momentum toward achieving the price stability target”. This is in line with the view that the Japanese central bank would continue to remain on hold into 2018, added Wells Fargo.