Consumer prices in Japan rose 0.4 per cent in June from a year earlier, in the first increase in 14 months, dpa quoted the government as saying Friday. The core consumer price index, which excludes fresh food, stood at 100.0 against a base of 100 for 2010, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said. Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, who took office in March, decided to take aggressive monetary easing measures to pull the world-third largest economy out of deflation, which has plagued the country for more than a decade. He vowed to achieve an inflation target of 2 per cent within about 2 years.
