The medians of the Policy Board members' forecasts of the inflation rate in the January Outlook Report indicate that the CPI is projected to be minus 0.5 percent for fiscal 2020, 0.5 percent for fiscal 2021, and 0.7 percent for fiscal 2022.
The Bank has not judged thus far that prices will see an overall and sustained decline and that the economy will return to deflation. That said,  5  attention should be paid not only to the impact of COVID-19 but also to risks that are specific to prices.