The Cabinet Office on Tuesday lowered its forecast for real economic growth in fiscal 2008 from 2.0 percent to 1.3 percent, citing surging energy costs and weakening growth in the United States that has hurt corporate earnings and consumer spending here.
The revised forecast follows a similar change by the Bank of Japan, which cut its fiscal 2008 forecast from 1.5 percent to 1.2 percent last week.
The Cabinet Office's downgrade was presented to the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy.
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