Consumer prices fell 0.3 percent in March compared with a year earlier due to lower energy prices, the government said Thursday, leaving the Bank of Japan far behind in its quest to stoke 2 percent inflation.
The core consumer price index, which excludes volatile fresh food prices, stood at 102.7 against the 2010 base of 100, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said. The size of the decline, the first in five months, was the largest since April 2013, when the BOJ began its unprecedented quantitative and qualitative monetary easing policy.
Energy prices plunged 13.3 percent from a year earlier amid declining crude oil prices, sending gasoline prices sliding 20.5 percent and electricity 9.0 percent.