Japan’s core consumer price index rose for the fifth straight month in January but at a slower pace than in previous month. Price index primarily rose due to surging energy prices.
The core consumer price index (CPI), excluding volatile fresh food prices but includes fuel costs, increased 0.2% in January from a year earlier, according to government data showed on Friday.
Reuters poll had median forecast of 0.3% and 0.5% rise in the previous two months.
“Consumer inflation will pick up from next month onward on higher food and energy prices,” said Taro Saito, executive research fellow at NLI Research Institute, as reported by Reuters.
“It may jump to more than 1.5% in one go in April once the impact of mobile phone fee cuts comes to an end.”
The core CPI has posted a year-on-year increase every month since September. January’s increase marked the slowest year-on-year rise in three months.
However, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) expected to maintain ultra loose monetary policy to achieve 2% target inflation rate, this is despite side-effects to the weakening yen.
