PANews reported on February 17th that, according to Jinshi News, former Bank of Japan policy board member Seiji Adachi stated that the Bank of Japan is likely to use the abundant new data available in April as an opportunity to raise interest rates, ignoring market speculation about a possible rate hike in March. Adachi said in an interview on Monday, "A rate hike in March would be risky because it would be based on expectations rather than confirmation signals. April will provide a large amount of data to confirm improvements in underlying inflation." Adachi's view aligns with the growing market expectation that the committee, led by Governor Kazuo Ueda, may act in the spring—earlier than most economists predicted after the last rate hike in December.