Producer prices up 2.6% in July

August 10, 2017

TOKYO- Japan's producer prices in July increased 2.6 percent from a year earlier, up for the seventh straight month, following a rise in prices of crude oil, iron ores and other materials, the Bank of Japan said Thursday.

The rate of increase was the highest since November 2013, excluding the effects of the April 2014 consumption tax rate hike from 5 percent to 8 percent.

The producer price index stood at 98.8 against 100 for the base year of 2015, the central bank said in a preliminary report.

Prices of petroleum and coal products jumped 11.8 percent on the back of higher global market prices.

Nonferrous metal and steel prices also soared, 13percent and 11.3 percent, respectively, thanks to hopes for growing demand for infrastructure construction in China and the United States.

Of the 744 items surveyed, prices rose for 356 and fell for 277. Items with higher prices outnumbered those with lower prices for the fourth consecutive months.

"While international market prices are stable, we are paying close attention to the effects of geopolitical risks over North Korea and the Middle East," an official of the BOJ Research and Statistics Department said. Jiji Press