TOKYO, Aug 22 \u2014 Rice prices in Japan soared 90.7 per cent in July year-on-year, official data showed Friday, but the rate of increase slowed from previous months offering some relief for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.<\/p>\n
Overall, Japan\u2019s core inflation rate eased to 3.1 per cent from 3.3 per cent in June, the data from the internal affairs ministry showed.<\/p>\n
But the rate remains above the Bank of Japan\u2019s two-per cent target, cementing expectations that it will hike interest rates in October.<\/p>\n
The reading, which excludes volatile fresh food prices, was slightly above market expectations of 3.0 per cent.<\/p>\n
Excluding energy and also fresh food, consumer prices rose 3.4 per cent, the same rate as in June.<\/p>\n
The BoJ has been reluctant to raise borrowing costs, seeing above-target inflation as caused by temporary factors.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent added to pressure on the BoJ to hike rates, saying the bank was \u201cbehind the curve\u201d on inflation.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur base case is a 25-basis-point rate hike at the October meeting,\u201d said Taro Kimura at Bloomberg Economics before inflation data was announced. He had predicted a reading of 3.0 per cent.<\/p>\n
Thin ice<\/strong><\/p>\n Ishiba has been on thin ice since disastrous upper house elections in July that saw his ruling coalition lose its majority.<\/p>\n This came only a few months after his administration became a minority government in the more powerful lower house too.<\/p>\n One of the main sources of voter anger has been inflation, and in particular the surging cost of rice.<\/p>\n In June the price of the staple grain was 100.2 per cent higher than a year earlier. In May the rate was 101.7 per cent.<\/p>\n Factors include a very hot summer in 2023, panic-buying after a warning of an imminent \u201cmegaquake\u201d in 2024, alleged hoarding by some traders, and a surge in rice-hungry tourists.<\/p>\n Ishiba appointed a new farm minister and his government has released rice from emergency stocks in an effort to bring prices down.<\/p>\n Earlier this month it announced a change in its decades-old policy of encouraging farmers to grow crops other than rice.<\/p>\n US President Donald Trump also wants Japan to import more American rice to reduce Tokyo\u2019s trade surplus with the United States.<\/p>\n Trade deal\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Last week, data showed that Japan\u2019s economy, the world\u2019s fourth-biggest, grew at an annualised pace of 1.0 per cent in the second quarter.<\/p>\n The reading suggested the economy was suffering less than expected from US tariffs imposed earlier this year.<\/p>\n But other data released Wednesday showed exports to the United States plunging 10.1 per cent in July, with those of cars down 28.4 per cent.<\/p>\n Trump initially imposed across-the-board tariffs of 10 per cent on Japan, as well as levies of 27.5 per cent on cars.<\/p>\n Japan\u2019s automobile industry, which includes giants like Toyota and Honda, accounts for around eight per cent of the country\u2019s jobs.<\/p>\n Japan last month secured a trade deal that cut threatened 25 per cent \u201creciprocal\u201d tariffs to 15 per cent.<\/p>\n The rate on Japanese cars was also cut to 15 per cent, although to Tokyo\u2019s consternation, this has yet to take effect. \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOKYO, Aug 22 \u2014 Rice prices in Japan soared 90.7 per cent in July year-on-year, official data showed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[14800,79,179,18,19,17,14802,14798,14799,14803,14801],"class_list":{"0":"post-16386","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-bank-of-japan-interest-rates","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-japan-core-inflation-rate","15":"tag-japan-rice-price-surge","16":"tag-shigeru-ishiba","17":"tag-tokyo-economy","18":"tag-us-japan-trade-deal"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}