Japan's consumer prices jump 40-year high of 3.7 pct in November

TOKYO, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- Core consumer prices in Japan jumped 3.7 percent in November, a more than four-decade high, as prices for food and energy imports were further inflated by a weak yen, the government said in a report on Friday.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the nationwide core consumer price index, excluding volatile fresh food items, increased for a 15th consecutive month.

The 3.7 percent rise was the biggest since December 1981, the data showed, and remained well above the Bank of Japan's (BOJ) long-held 2 percent inflation target, with the BOJ indicating it believes global inflationary pressure to be transitory.

Japan's central bank, however, took markets by surprise earlier this week by raising its cap on long-term Japanese government bond yields, in a move not expected until next year, despite other major central banks hiking their benchmark rates to tame global inflation.

The ministry said the overall inflation figure in November was pushed up by energy prices jumping 13.3 percent from a year earlier for resource-scarce Japan.

Food prices, meanwhile, excluding volatile fresh food items, leaped 6.8 percent, marking the sharpest increase since February 1981, the data showed, with consumers feeling the pinch as more retailers are raising their prices.

The core-core CPI, which excludes both fresh food and energy items, rose 2.8 percent, marking eight straight months of increase, the statistics bureau also said.