MNI BRIEF: Japan CPI Unlikely To Remain Elevated - BOJ Minutes

Some Bank of Japan board members maintained a cautious price view and shared the view Japan’s inflation rate will not stay elevated as demand-driven price hikes remain weak, according to the April 27-28 meeting minutes released Wednesday.

“A few members were of the view that, in order for CPI to rise again toward 2% after decelerating, it was necessary that underlying factors including wage developments, firms' growth expectations, and medium- to long-term inflation expectations be improved and that sticky prices such as services prices rise,” the minutes showed. “One member expressed the view that, considering, for example, the increase in households' thriftiness and weak real wages, attention needed to be paid to future scenarios, such as one where CPI inflation declined to a level well below 2% and did not return to 2%.”

Some members also believed, while firms' price-setting stance had changed, CPI was unlikely to remain elevated, unlike the US and European situation, given the peak in Japanese import prices and moves to raise selling prices, which reflected excess demand had not been as widespread as experienced in other developed counties.