TOKYO, Reuters – Sources said Wednesday that the Bank of Japan will slightly raise its inflation projection for April’s fiscal year due to rising energy prices. However, the revised projection will maintain a low rate of price growth at 2%.

According to five people familiar with BOJ thinking, inflation will likely exceed 1% because of rising fuel and material costs.

This is an increase from the October forecast of core consumer inflation increasing to 0.9% fiscal 2022, after flat growth during the fiscal ended March.

The BOJ will present the quarterly projections during its policy meeting Jan. 17-18.

Sources indicated that BOJ could also see an increase in its growth projections for the next fiscal year due to the expected stimulus package and supply constraint reductions.

Following the year’s 3.4% growth, the nine-member board anticipates that the economy will expand by 2.9% next year.

Sources said that such upward revisions will likely not prompt the BOJ’s massive stimulus to be trimmed as inflation will still remain far below its target of 2%.