Japan logged record wholesale inflation surge in 2022

Japan's wholesale prices hit a record level for 2022 due to the yen's decline inflating prices for raw materials and energy, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) said in a report on Monday.

For the whole year of 2022, the producer price index, which measures the costs of goods traded between businesses, surged 9.7 percent from the previous year, marking the biggest rise since comparable data were available in 1981 and twice as fast as the 2021-level, BOJ data showed.

In December alone, the index climbed 10.2 percent from a year earlier to 119.5 against the 2020 base of 100, the central bank said.

This marked a year-on-year increase for the 22nd straight month, which has been putting a strain on corporate profits, with rising numbers of Japanese businesses passing on these mounting costs to consumers.

Among major contributors to the increases in corporate prices for the month, iron and steel products jumped 20.9 percent, and pulp and paper were up 13.3 percent.

In yen terms, export prices gained 12.1 percent in the reporting period, while import prices surged 22.8 percent from a year ago in December, said the BOJ.