fil photo exterior of bank of japans headquarter is pictured in tokyo japan june 17 2022 reuterskim kyunghoon tokyo july 21 reuters  the bank of japan raised its inflation forecast on thursday but maintained ultralow interest rates and warned of risks to the economic outlook in a sign it will remain an outlier among a global wave of central banks tightening monetary policy for the time being while closely monitoring the impact of covid19 the bank will support financing  and will not hesitate to take additional easing measures if necessary the boj said in a statement announcing the decision as widely expected the boj kept unchanged its 01 target for shortterm interest rates and 0 for the 10year government bond yield by a 81 vote in fresh quarterly projections the boj raised its core consumer inflation forecast for the current fiscal year ending in march 2023 to 23 from 19 projected in april it expects core consumer inflation to hit 14 in fiscal 2023 compared with 11 in april the board cut its economic growth forecast for the current fiscal year to 24 from a 29 rise seen three months ago reporting by leika kihara tetsushi kajimoto daniel leussink and kantaro komiya editing by changran kim