The Japanese government's rare additional revision of GDP data may lead to the Bank of Japan delaying interest rate hikes

The June 26th news from Kinsey Data, the Japanese government stated that it will revise the first quarter GDP data to reflect the correction of construction order data and will announce the revised results on July 1st. Some analysts believe that the unusual revision of GDP data by the Japanese government may result in a significant downward revision of GDP, or may affect the Bank of Japan's economic growth forecast and the timing of the next interest rate hike. Yoshiki Shinke, Senior Executive Economist at the Dai-ichi Life Research Institute, expects that the revised data will show that Japan's first-quarter economic contraction rate is at 2.7% on a quarter-on-quarter basis, far higher than the current forecast of 1.8% contraction. This may force the Bank of Japan to lower its economic growth expectations at the monetary policy meeting on July 31st, and it may be difficult to justify an interest rate hike.