Japan's wholesale prices rose 2.2 percent in the just-ended fiscal year, gaining for the second straight year on the back of crude price markups in the first half of the fiscal year, the Bank of Japan said Wednesday.
The size of the increase in the central bank's Corporate Goods Price Index — a gauge of prices of goods traded between companies — for fiscal 2018 compares with 2.7 percent growth in the previous fiscal year.
Oil and coal products saw their prices jump 13.8 percent, followed by a 7.2 percent gain in the prices for electric power, gas and water, and a 5.7 percent increase in scrap and waste prices. Those for information and communications equipment declined 1.3 percent.