Japan’s consumer prices fell for a fourth month, indicating the Bank of Japan may need to do more to counter deflation after expanding monetary easing.
Consumer prices excluding fresh food dropped 0.1 percent in January from a year earlier, the statistics bureau said Friday in Tokyo. The median estimate was for a 0.2 percent decline, in a Bloomberg News survey of 28 economists.
“The data reconfirm Japan’s deflation is deeply rooted,” said Masamichi Adachi, senior economist at JP Morgan Securities in Tokyo and a former central bank official. “The Bank of Japan will probably have to act more aggressively going forward.”
