Japanese consumer inflation slowed for the third straight month to 2.0 percent in January, government data showed Tuesday.
The reading will likely stoke speculation that the Bank of Japan might soon move away from negative interest rates and its tight grip on bond yields. The year-on-year rise in prices in the world’s fourth-largest economy, excluding those for volatile fresh food, followed an increase of 2.3 percent in December.
The dip in the core consumer price index (CPI) was slightly less pronounced than expected, with economists polled by Bloomberg predicting 1.9 percent.
But the reading continued a broad trend of cooling inflation over the past year.—AFP
