Japan’s consumer prices rising

TOKYO: Japan’s core consumer prices were expected to show their seventh straight month of annual increases in July, a Reuters poll found, offering the central bank some hope a strengthening economic recovery will gradually lift inflation toward its 2 percent target.

But the projected 0.5 percent year-on-year increase will be well off the Bank of Japan’s target and keep the central bank under pressure to maintain its massive monetary stimulus, analysts say. “The increase is largely due to the effect of rising energy costs. Upward price pressure for other goods remains weak,” said Takumi Tsunoda, senior economist at Shinkin Central Bank. The nationwide core consumer price index (CPI), which includes oil products but excludes volatile fresh food prices, rose 0.4 percent in June from a year earlier.