TOKYO, Sept 14 (NNN-NHK) – Japan’s wholesale prices jumped nine percent in Aug, from the previous year, as commodity costs continued to rise and the yen’s rapid decline lifted import costs, Bank of Japan data showed yesterday.
The corporate goods price index, which measures costs of goods and services traded between businesses, stood at a record high of 115.1, against the 2020 base of 100, marking the 18th straight month of increase, according to a preliminary report released by the Bank of Japan.
As Japan continues to feel the impact of rising global raw material prices, electricity, city gas and water prices soared 33.4 percent, steel prices rose 26.1 percent, prices for lumber and wood products climbed 20.2 percent, and oil and coal products increased by 15.6 percent.
The food and beverage price index went up 5.6 percent to a record high of 108.2.
Of the 515 goods surveyed by the Bank of Japan, 431, or over 80 percent, saw prices rise, as companies have been increasingly passing on rising raw material costs to their clients, the central bank said.
Meanwhile, the Japanese currency hit a fresh 24-year low against the dollar last week. The weak yen has boosted the costs of importing raw material goods, whose prices have been on the rise, weighing on corporate profits and forcing a growing number of companies to increase prices.
The yen-based import price index grew 42.5 percent in Aug, from a year earlier, the fifth consecutive month that the margin of increase has surpassed 40 percent, with nearly half of the rise attributable to the yen’s fall, the report showed.– NNN-NHK
