© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A woman looks at items at a shop in Tokyo, Japan, March 24, 2023. REUTERS/Androniki Christodoulou/File Photo
By Leika Kihara
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s annual wholesale inflation slowed in August for the eighth straight month, data showed on Wednesday, offering some relief for households and retailers hit by past sharp rises in raw material imports.
The corporate goods price index (CGPI), which measures the price companies charge each other for their goods and services, rose 3.2% in August from a year earlier, matching a median market forecast.
It slowed from a revised 3.4% rise in July, and is now off a peak 10.6% year-on-year surge hit in December last year, data by the Bank of Japan (BOJ) showed.
Rising wholesale prices, driven by last year’s surge in global commodity costs and the weak yen, have pushed up Japan’s broader consumer inflation by prodding many firms to charge households more for their goods.
While consumer inflation has remained above the BOJ’s 2% target for more than a year, the central bank has stressed the need to keep ultra-loose monetary policy until such supply-driven rise in prices is replaced by an increase backed by domestic demand. (This story has been corrected to remove the reference to BOJ target in the headline)
