Japan's core inflation hits 2-year high, keeps rate-hike bets alive

TOKYO - Japan's core inflation hit a more than two-year high in May and exceeded the central bank's 2% target for well over three years, keeping it under pressure to resume interest rate hikes despite economic headwinds from U.S. tariffs.
The data underscores the challenge the Bank of Japan faces in juggling pressure from sticky food inflation and risks to the fragile economy from uncertainty over President Donald Trump's trade policy.
The core consumer price index (CPI), which excludes volatile fresh food costs, rose 3.7% in May from a year earlier, data showed on Friday, exceeding market forecasts for a 3.6% gain and accelerating from a 3.5% increase in April. It was the fastest annual pace since the 4.2% hit in January 2023.
The increase was driven by stubbornly high prices of food, excluding volatile fresh items like vegetables, with Japan's staple rice seeing prices double in May from year-before levels.
Rice balls cost nearly 20% more than year-before levels, while a bar of chocolate saw prices rise 27%, the data showed.
While slower than the 5.3% increase in goods prices, service-sector inflation accelerated to 1.4% in May from 1.3% in April in a sign firms were steadily passing on labour costs.
"Given heightened uncertainty over U.S. tariff policy, the BOJ is taking a wait-and-see approach to scrutinise developments in bilateral trade talks," said Ryosuke Katagi, market economist at Mizuho Securities.
"But today's data shows anew that domestic inflation is heightening particularly that for goods. When looking just at price moves, conditions for additional rate hikes will likely stay in place throughout 2025," he said.
A separate index that strips away the effects of both volatile fresh food and fuel costs rose 3.3% in May from a year earlier after a 3.0% rise in April, the data showed.
The rise in the index, which is closely watched by the BOJ as a better indicator of demand-driven price moves, was the fastest since January 2024 when it increased 3.5%.
Food prices, excluding those of volatile fresh food, rose 7.7% in May from a year earlier, faster than the 7.0% gain in April, reflecting the pain households are feeling from rising living costs.
BOJ policymakers expect such cost-push pressures to moderate later this year and, coupled with expected rises in wages, underpin consumption and keep Japan on track to durably achieve their 2% inflation target backed by solid domestic demand.
Analysts polled by Reuters expect core inflation in Tokyo, considered a leading indicator of nationwide trends, to slow to 3.3% in June from 3.6% in May.
But some analysts are less convinced.
"Inflation is overshooting expectations. The rise in food costs is particularly big and re-accelerating this year," said Yoshiki Shinke, an economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute, adding that firms seem keen to raise prices further.
"Core consumer inflation will likely slow below 3% in August and below 2% early 2026. But the pace of slowdown could be more moderate than we expect," he said.
The BOJ ended a massive stimulus programme last year and in January raised short-term rates to 0.5% on the view Japan was on the cusp of durably meeting its 2% inflation target.
While the central bank has signalled readiness to raise rates further, the repercussions from higher U.S. tariffs forced it to cut its growth forecasts and complicated decisions around the timing of the next rate increase.
Minutes of the BOJ's April 30-May 1 meeting showed the board divided on the future inflation path with some members warning that inflation could overshoot the BOJ's projections.
Underscoring its attention to inflationary pressures, a BOJ research paper said hiking rates only gradually as raw material costs rise could heighten the risk of an upward spiral in wages and consumer prices.
A slight majority of economists in a Reuters poll expected the BOJ's next 25-basis-point increase to come in early 2026.
(Reporting by Leika Kihara; Editing by Sam Holmes)

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