fiscal 2014, and 1. 9 percent for fiscal 2015 ( chart 15 ). the pace of achieving 2 percent depends on the future movement of the phillips curve, which appears to remain largely flat at this stage ( chart 16 ). the closer the medium - to long - term inflation expectations are to the 2 percent target, the larger the shift in the curve ( chart 2 ). additionally, the faster the pace of changing the deflation mindset of households and the deflation - oriented pricing behavior of firms, the steeper the curve will become ( chart 2 ). because it may take some time before the full impact of qqe via these processes materializes, i consider there may be some degree of uncertainty regarding the duration of achieving the 2 percent target. gradual rise in economic activity and outlook the favorable price developments discussed earlier are associated with positive economic activities. both consumer and business confidence indicators have shown improvement ( chart 17 ). the high level of consumer confidence reflects the wealth effects driven by higher stock prices compared with last year and steady improvements in employment. this – together with a front - loaded increase caused by an expected rise in the consumption tax hike scheduled in april 2014 – has contributed to a resilient performance in private consumption and housing investment ( chart 18 ). moreover, improved business confidence, bis central bankers ’ speeches together with an increase in sales and profits, is likely to expand the business fixed investment further as planned by firms ( chart 19 ). the outlook for the economy is consistent with the outlook for increased prices. according to the bank ’ s baseline scenario, the economy is expected to continue a moderate recovery on the back of the resilience in domestic demand and the pick - up in overseas economies. while the economy is likely to be affected by the front - loaded increase and subsequent decline in demand prior to and after the two scheduled consumption tax hikes, it is expected to continue growing at a pace above its potential growth rate ( currently estimated to be about 0. 5 percent ), as a virtuous cycle of spending, production, and income operates. according to the median of the policy board members ’ forecasts, the real gdp growth rate is expected to be 2. 8 percent for fiscal 2013, 1. 3 percent for fiscal 2014, and 1. 5 percent for fiscal 2015, averaging almost 2 percent ( chart 20 ). v. concluding remarks i would like to conclude my speech today by emphasizing that the bank ’ s task is not only to overcome deflation

as limited experience and data constraints in measuring their effectiveness, and further theory building and testing will be required. as a result of increases in the variety of toolkits and also advances in monetary policy making, central banks need to be more careful about how they communicate. these points are related to the recent decision of the bank of japan made at the end of april to conduct a review of its monetary policy from a broad perspective. since the late 1990s, when japan's economy fell into deflation, the bank has implemented various monetary easing measures. we will review the interaction between these measures and economic activity, prices, and financial conditions, and the positive effects and the side effects, drawing on the knowledge in japan and abroad. iii. new opportunities finally, i would like to talk about new opportunities. in recent years, both academics and policy makers have benefitted greatly from digitalization. they have exploited new types of data in their analyses, including highly granular data at the level of individual firms, households, and persons ; daily and intraday high - frequency data ; people flow data ; and text data. improvements in computational power have made the analysis of such data far easier and more advanced than before. these examples of new opportunities played a particularly large role in understanding economic conditions at the outbreak of the pandemic, for instance. in the rapidly changing economic conditions brought about by the spread of the virus, it became necessary for policymakers to observe the economic activities of firms and individuals on a weekly or daily basis. the bank of japan was no exception. for example, the bank used high frequency data such as consumption developments based on credit card payment data and nighttime population of downtown tokyo based on smartphone location data. iv. conclusion 3 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches we are now about to start the 28th boj - imes conference. this year's mayekawa lecture will be given by professor maurice obstfeld of university of california, berkeley. professor obstfeld served as honorary adviser to the imes from 2001 to 2014 and has participated in boj - imes conferences 12 times. i have had the pleasure of participating with him in nine of them. i am looking forward to his lecture based on his experience as an academic, policy maker, and old friend of the bank of japan. in the keynote speech, professor athanasios orphanides of mit, one of our honorary advisers, will share his views on the policy communication aspect of monetary policy strategy, in