Overall prices in Japan remained even in the 12 months through January after global slowing consumption reduced demand for autos and electronics. When eliminating food and energy from the metric, Japan actually suffered from deflation. These prices fell by 0.2% throughout the same period.
Of course, slumping prices shouldn't be much of a surprise. Slowing global demand for the country’s goods continued hampering Japan’s ability to weather the storm. Sales of vehicles manufactured in Japan throughout January fell by largest amount in at least 29 years. Indeed, the January reading of the said car data fell -27.9% in the 12 months through Jan. 31st. As such, it was of little surprise that the export portion of the metric fell by -13.9% in the period alone.
