Japan Producer-Price Growth Slows to 2.6% in July

Japan’s producer-price inflation cooled for a second consecutive month in July, with the Bank of Japan’s Corporate Goods Price Index rising 2.6% from a year earlier. The reading was marginally above the 2.5% consensus estimate but slower than June’s 2.9% gain, indicating that upstream cost pressures continue to ease after last year’s surge. On a month-to-month basis, wholesale prices increased 0.2%, matching economists’ expectations and reversing a 0.2% decline in June. While the data suggest input-cost inflation remains subdued, it is still above the BOJ’s 2% price-stability target and will factor into policymakers’ assessment of whether underlying inflation is strong enough to justify a further shift away from ultra-loose monetary settings.