TOKYO: Japanese consumer inflation posted a year-on-year rise for the eighth straight month in January, government data showed Friday.
Stripping out volatile fresh food prices, core consumer prices climbed 1.3 percent, the same rate as in December, which was the sharpest rise in more than five years.
The upbeat headline for Friday's inflation data was tempered by the fact that prices were still largely driven up by higher fuel bills.
Electricity prices jumped 8.5 percent and gasoline prices soared 6.5 percent while television set prices rose 3.7 percent.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government has put conquering deflation and stoking growth in the world's third-largest economy at the top of its agenda with a policy blitz dubbed "Abenomics".
The central bank has a 2.0 percent inflation target as Tokyo battles to reverse years of falling prices.
Japan's energy costs soared in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima atomic disaster, which forced the shutdown of the nation's nuclear reactors.
Since the accident, Japan has been importing fossil fuels to plug the energy gap, a pricey option that has become even more expensive as the yen sharply weakened in the wake of the Bank of Japan's unprecedented monetary easing.
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