Apr 12 (Al Jazeera) - Japan’s wholesale inflation remained near record-high levels in March as the Ukraine crisis and a weak yen pushed up fuel and raw material costs, data showed on Tuesday, adding strains to the resource-poor economy heavily reliant on imports.
While rising wholesale prices will help accelerate consumer inflation towards the central bank’s elusive 2 percent target, it could hurt an economy still reeling from the coronavirus pandemic, analysts say.
The corporate goods price index (CGPI), which measures the prices companies charge each other for their goods and services, rose 9.5 percent in March from a year earlier, data showed.
That followed a revised 9.7 percent spike in February, which was the fastest pace on record, and exceeded a median market forecast for a 9.3 percent gain. The March index, at 112.0, was the highest level since December 1982, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) said.
The yen-based import price index jumped 33.4 percent in March from a year earlier, the data showed, a sign the yen’s recent declines are inflating the cost of imports for Japanese firms.
Japanese companies have been slow in passing on rising costs to households as soft wage growth weighed on consumption, keeping consumer inflation well below the BOJ’s 2 percent target.
