The Tankan also shows that firms' inflation outlook for general prices has risen clearly for one year ahead, reaching its highest level since the start of the survey, while the outlooks for three years ahead and five years ahead also have increased to near peak levels. As firms adopt an increasingly active price-setting stance, Japanese households' tolerance of price rises has been increasing.
This can be regarded as an important change from the perspective of aiming to achieve sustained inflation. On this point, Watanabe Tsutomu, professor at the University of Tokyo, is conducting an interesting survey (Chart 9).