Consumer prices in Japan rose 0.7 per cent in July from a year earlier for the second consecutive month of increase, the government said Friday. The core consumer price index, which excludes fresh food, stood at 100.1 against a base of 100 for 2010, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said. In June, the index climbed 0.4 per cent in the first increase in 14 months. Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, who took office in March, vowed to pull the world's third-largest economy out of 15 years of deflation. He decided to take aggressive monetary easing steps to achieve an inflation target of 2 per cent within about 2 years. -- SPA 11:04 LOCAL TIME 08:04 GMT تغريد
