TOKYO—The Bank of Japan offered on Wednesday its most optimistic view of the country’s regional economy in more than eight years, in a sign of its confidence that a recent resurgence in coronavirus infections would not derail the country’s fragile recovery. The upbeat assessment heightens the chance the BOJ will revise up its growth and price forecasts for the year beginning in April in fresh projections due next week. “Japan’s economy is picking up as a trend, although it remains in a severe state due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic,” BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said in a speech to the bank’s regional branch managers on Wednesday. Kuroda also said consumer inflation was likely to gradually accelerate on an expected increase in demand. In a sign rising energy and raw material costs were emerging as a fresh risk to Japan’s recovery, however, the Reuters Tankan poll showed on Wednesday …