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Japan’s inflation remains unchanged in July

Japan’s inflation remains unchanged in July

Mubasher: Japan’s underlying consumer prices continued to grow at the same momentum in July, remaining far from the Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) target.

Stripping out fresh food, the so-called core consumer price index (CPI) came in at 0.6% last July on an annualised basis, data by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said on Friday.

The annualised gain in core CPI, which is still well below the BoJ’s 2% inflationary target, reflected a surge in utility costs, offset by declining mobile phone fees and gasoline prices.

Energy costs edged up by 0.6% in July, with electricity and gas prices climbing by 2.7% and 3%, respectively, while oil products saw a price drop of 2.7%, mainly driven by falling gasoline prices.

“There is no change in our view that [consumer prices] are on a moderate upward trend,” a ministry official was quoted by Japanese newspaper the Mainichi.

The so-called “core-core” consumer prices, which excludes prices of fresh food and energy-related items, also rose by 0.6% year-on-year last month, accelerating from a 0.5% increase in the preceding month.

By 7:33 am GMT, the Japanese yen (JPY) weakened against the US dollar, with the USD/JPY pair rising by 0.21% to JPY 106.6600.