Japanese consumer inflation topped 1 percent in November for the first time in five years, making steady headway under the central bank's efforts to achieve a 2 percent inflation target via aggressive monetary stimulus.
Factory output rose for a third straight month, retail sales jumped and job availability hit a six-year high, other data showed on Friday, adding to growing signs the recovery in the world's third-largest economy is gathering momentum.
Still, analysts remain doubtful of whether inflation will accelerate quickly enough to meet the BOJ's ambitious target, set in April, of 2 percent inflation in roughly two years.
"Consumer prices show signs of being pushed up by the weak yen, so we're still looking at cost-push inflation. It remains to be seen how strongly wages will rise," said Yasuo Yamamoto, senior economist at Mizuno Research Institute in Tokyo.
The core consumer price index, which includes oil products but excludes volatile costs of fresh food, rose 1.2 percent in November from a year earlier, government data showed on Friday, roughly in line with a median market forecast for a 1.1 percent increase.
That was the fastest pace of growth since a 1.9 percent increase in October 2008, when a spike in global commodity prices pushed up import costs.
Source: NewsOnJapan
