Japanese spend less on dining out amid vegetable price surge

April 6, 2018

Tokyo- Japanese consumers have spent less on dining out and travel as their expenses on foods grew due to a surge in vegetable prices, a Bank of Japan quarterly survey found Thursday.

According to the March survey, the proportion of respondents who think that prices in the country rose from a year before came to 73.5 percent, up from 67.1 percent in the previous December 2017 survey, apparently reflecting the surge in vegetable prices that started late last year.

The proportion of those seeing rises in their food spending rose 5.1 percentage points to 26.2 percent.

By contrast, over 20 percent curbed their outlays on dining out, travel and clothing.

The latest survey also showed that the consumer confidence diffusion index fell 0.5 point to minus 12.4, down for the first time in five quarters.

The DI represents the percentage of respondents who think economic conditions improved from a year before minus that of those feeling the opposite.

The latest survey covered 4,000 people aged 20 or over. Valid responses came from 2,092. Jiji Press