Wholesale prices climbed 2.8 percent in fiscal 2006 from the previous year, posting the sharpest rise in 26 years, due to a surge in the price of nonferrous metals and crude oil, the Bank of Japan said Thursday.
The figures, gauged by the BOJ's corporate goods price index, surpassed the 2.7 percent gain logged in fiscal 1989 at the height of the asset-inflated economic bubble to mark the highest rise since fiscal 1980, when wholesale prices surged 12.5 percent in the aftermath of the second oil crisis, the central bank said.
The CGPI came to 101.2 in the fiscal year to March 31 against the base of 100 for 2000 for the third straight yearly expansion, the BOJ said in a preliminary report.