Japan February inflation figures.
Consumer Price Index, headline rate 3.3% y/y
- expected 4.1%, prior 4.3%
CPI ex-Fresh Food 3.1% y/y (this is the 'core' rate)
- expected 3.1%, prior 4.2%
CPI ex Food, Energy 3.5% y/y (this is 'core-core' rate, the closest to the US measure of core CPI )
- expected 3.4%, prior 3.2%
- 3.5% is the highest since January 1982
The headline rate dropped from January, in line with a similar result from the Tokyo area February CPI three weeks ago. Core and core-core rates, showing underlying inflationary pressures, are far more sticky though. The Bank of Japan expects inflation to be transitory and to decline from around September/October so its too early to draw any hard conclusions about the implications of this data for BOJ monetary policy.
Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda finishes up at the Bank on April 8. He'll be replaced by Kazuo Ueda, on the right in the pic below:
