The central government is considering declaring an official end to deflation, sources familiar with the matter said Saturday, some two decades after it acknowledged that prices were falling moderately.
While Japan has maintained that the country is "not in a state of deflation," it has yet to confidently declare that deflation is in the rearview mirror. It has struggled for years to dispel deeply rooted public perceptions that prices and wages will not rise.
But the recent bout of inflation — driven mostly by higher import costs and the prospect of sustainable wage growth — appears to have cleared the way for Japan to end its war on deflation.