TOKYO: Japan’s inflation rate fell to its lowest level in over a year in December as the economy struggles to emerge from a recession, in a fresh setback to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ’s campaign to end more than a decade of chronic price falls.The world’s third-largest economy remains largely stagnant except its labor market, an indication of the depth of a slump caused by a national sales tax increase in April this year.
The rate of increase in Japan’s core consumer price index—adjusted for volatile fresh-food prices and the impact of a national sales tax increase in April—fell to 0.7% in November from a 0.9% rise the previous month, according to government data released Friday.
Inflation has been slowing across the world, a trend that is strengthening with the rapid descent of international oil prices, complicating efforts by central banks, such as the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank, to prevent or get rid of deflation.
The latest inflation reading is the lowest since September 2013, and matched a forecast of economists polled by The Wall Street Journal and the Nikkei.
