Consumer prices in Japan rose 0.8 per cent in August from a year earlier for the third straight month of increase on higher electricity and other energy prices amid the yen’s fall, the government said on Friday.
The core consumer price index, which excludes fresh food, stood at 100.4 against a base of 100 for 2010, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said.
Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, who took office in March, vowed to pull the nation’s economy out of 15 years of deflation. The bank decided to take aggressive monetary easing measures to achieve an inflation target of 2 per cent within about 2 years.
In June, the index climbed 0.4 per cent in the first increase in 14 months.
A weaker yen is a factor contributing to the higher energy prices as the depreciation of the currency drove up import costs.