Japan's cabinet office has sharply revised down some of its estimates of recent economic growth, raising doubts about the strength of the country's recovery.

The government now thinks growth in gross domestic product in the third quarter slowed to its most sluggish since the end of 2004 - an about-face from its previous estimate of an acceleration.

The cabinet office said GDP grew an annualised 0.8 per cent in the three months to September, compared with the earlier estimate of 2 per cent.

Quarter-on-quarter growth was revised down to 0.2 per cent from 0.5 per cent. Economists had expected a downward revision, but not such a sharp one.

Calculations for the year to March 2006 were also cut. The revisions suggest Japan's recent boom has been even more tentative than previously thought. However, they failed to damp growing expectations of an imminent interest rate rise, even when followed by news of a 1.2 per cent yearly decline in core private sector machinery orders in October - the fourth in a row.

The yield on two-year Japanese government bonds remained unchanged at 0.865 per cent. A majority of economists still expect the Bank of Japan to raise interest rates again by the end of January.