While the economy will be affected by a swing in the front-loaded increase and subsequent decline in demand prior to and after the two scheduled consumption tax hikes, it is likely to continue growing at a pace above its potential, which is estimated to be around 0.5 percent, as a trend.
In terms of the median of the real GDP projections by the nine Policy Board members in the Outlook Report released at the end of October, it is 2.7 percent for fiscal 2013, 1.5 percent for fiscal 2014, and 1.5 percent again for fiscal 2015 (Chart 1).