TOKYO Japan's economy may be improving faster than expected, a key Japanese economic minister said Sunday, a day before the government's announcement of machinery orders.

"Depending on the (machinery order) figures, I think it possible to make our economic assessment more forward looking, steps further than our view that the economy has bottomed out," state Minister for Economic and Fiscal Policy Heizo Takenaka said.

Takenaka's remarks on the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) network came as the Cabinet Office prepared to announce its latest assessment of the Japanese economy on Thursday, AFP reported.

The office declared in May that the economy had bottomed out but refused to upgrade its economic assessment in June.

The office said last month private-sector machinery orders, a leading indicator of corporate capital spending, jumped 8.4 percent in April from the preceding month, posting the highest growth in five months.

But it ruled out any optimism, noting that private sector machinery orders were on a declining trend, despite the strong rise in April.

Takenaka, a former university economics professor, had been cautious about an upward revision of economic assessment due to such risk factors as plunges in U.S. stocks and the yen's appreciation against the dollar which erodes Japan's export earnings.

He rejected, however, a fresh fiscal measure to pump up the economy despite calls for such a move within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. "It is extremely silly to take an additional measure at a time when the economy is beginning to improve," Takenaka said. "We should stop arguing that the government should deliver feed when something happens."

Last week, Trade Minister Takeo Hiranuma said that ruling coalition parties will consider working out an "additional economic stimulus package" when the Japanese Parliament convenes a session in September.

The measures will include tax reforms and increases in government spending to stimulate the economy, Hiranuma said.

Takenaka's upbeat view reflected Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's declaration at the Group of Eight summit in Canada last month that the Japanese economy was defying gloomy predictions and bottoming out under his reform drive, which, he pledged, would not waver.