Japan’s wholesale prices rose faster than expected in October, keeping alive market expectations that the Bank of Japan will raise interest rates again before the end of the year.
The corporate goods price index, which tracks the prices companies charge each other for goods and services, climbed 7.1% from a year earlier, Bank of Japan data showed on Thursday. That was faster than the 6.5% rise economists had forecast and an acceleration from the 6.8% increase recorded in September.
The figures point to renewed upward pressure on prices from two directions. The conflict in the Middle East has kept fuel costs high, while strong demand for semiconductors linked to artificial intelligence has pushed up the price of chips and related components. Petroleum and coal prices rose 15.9% from a year earlier, quickening from an 11.5% gain in September, while chemical goods prices were up 15.5%.
The weak yen added to the squeeze. The yen-based import price index surged 24.8% in October from a year earlier, a sign that the currency’s weakness continues to push up the cost of imported raw materials. Wholesale inflation has now stayed above 6% since May, and it reached 7.7% in July, its fastest pace since February 2023.
The data will be one of the factors the Bank of Japan weighs at its next policy meeting on 17 and 18 December, when many analysts expect it to lift its policy rate to 1.5% from 1.25%. In an October Reuters poll, 54 of 78 economists predicted an increase at that meeting.
Not everyone inside the central bank is in a hurry, however. Bank of Japan board member Toichiro Asada said on Thursday that the timing of further rate rises needed care, warning that tightening was increasingly weighing on economic activity as rates approach neutral levels and that private consumption remains sluggish.
For now, though, the October figures strengthen the case of those expecting the bank to move in December. Companies have continued to pass on higher labour and raw material costs, and the head of the bank’s price statistics division, Sayaka Yamazaki, told a briefing that firms timed price rises at the start of a new quarter and the latter half of Japan’s fiscal year.
Sources: Reuters, “Japan wholesale inflation accelerates, keeps alive BOJ rate-hike view” (https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-wholesale-inflation-accelerates-keeps-alive-boj-rate-hike-view-2026-11-12/); Bank of Japan corporate goods price index data, October 2026.
