By Leika Kihara<\/p>\n
TOKYO, May 15 (Reuters) – Japan’s wholesale inflation accelerated in April at the fastest pace in three years as the Iran war boosted \u200coil and chemical goods prices, data showed on Friday, bolstering the \u200ccase for the central bank to raise interest rates as soon as June.<\/p>\n
The data came after a \u200bBank of Japan (BOJ) policymaker called for raising rates “at the earliest stage possible” as soaring fuel costs from the Middle East war stoked price pressures.<\/p>\n
The corporate goods price index (CGPI), which measures the price companies charge each other for their goods and services, rose 4.9% \u200cin April from a year \u2060earlier, BOJ data showed on Friday, hitting the fastest annual increase since May 2023.<\/p>\n
The gauge blew past median market forecasts for a \u20603.0% gain, and accelerated sharply from a 2.9% increase in March.<\/p>\n
“Wholesale inflation is likely to continue accelerating as a trend,” said Masato Koike, senior economist at Sompo Institute Plus.<\/p>\n
“If \u200bprice rises \u200bare contained to oil-related goods, there is \u200blittle need for the BOJ \u200cto respond. But if they broaden to a wide range of goods, the BOJ will likely have to raise rates,” he said.<\/p>\n
The yen-based import price index spiked 17.5% in April from a year earlier, the fastest rise since December 2022, a sign the currency’s decline was adding to the energy shock in squeezing corporate margins \u200cthrough higher costs.<\/p>\n
On a month-on-month basis, wholesale prices \u200brose 2.3% in April after a 1.0% gain in \u200bMarch.<\/p>\n
The data showed broadening price \u200brises caused by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, \u200cwhich is cutting off oil supplies \u200bfor an economy heavily \u200breliant on imports from the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Petroleum and coal goods prices rose 5.3% in April from a year earlier, reflecting higher costs for crude oil \u200band jet fuel, the data \u200cshowed.<\/p>\n
Chemical goods prices surged 9.2% last month, the fastest pace since \u200bSeptember 2022, with the price of naphtha spiking 79.4%.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Leika Kihara; \u200bEditing by Jacqueline Wong and Shri Navaratnam)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Leika Kihara TOKYO, May 15 (Reuters) – Japan’s wholesale inflation accelerated in April at the fastest pace…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":797161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[12],"tags":[6238,64,325146,79,87323,170,67,132,68,84812],"class_list":["post-797160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-bank-of-japan","tag-business","tag-chemical-goods-prices","tag-economy","tag-goods-prices","tag-japan","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wholesale-prices"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116576229340341142","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}