Japan’s producer prices hit two-year low

Japan’s pace of producer price increases fell by a greater percentage than expected last October, reaching its weakest level in more than two years, which supports the view of the Bank of Japan, which sees that inflation is heading towards a slowdown.

Japan’s central bank said on Monday that the input price index for Japanese companies rose by about 0.8% compared to the previous year, the slowest pace of increase since the return of rises in the index in March 2021.

This percentage is lower than the expectations of economists, who estimated an increase of 0.9% year-on-year compared to the previous month, and prices fell by 0.4% compared to the previous month, while the consensus of analysts’ opinions expected no change at all.

The data also came in less than the 2.8% increase in the core inflation index during September, which means that the increase in material prices has declined since the last reading of the core inflation index issued by the central bank for the second month in a row.

Consumer price inflation data for October is scheduled to be released on November 24.