TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan's core consumer price inflation may have accelerated in November, driven by persistently high rice prices and the removal of utility subsidies, a Reuters poll showed on Friday.
The core consumer price index (CPI), which includes oil products but excludes fresh food prices, was expected to have risen 2.6% in November from a year before that, compared to 2.3% in October, a poll of 18 economists showed.
“In addition to higher prices in rice, food and industrial product prices, energy prices were also pushed up as the government cut subsidies for the city's electricity and gas bills,” Mizuho Research & Technologies said in the report.
The ministry of internal affairs will release the November CPI data on December 20 at 8:30 am (December 19 at 2330 GMT).
The poll also showed that exports are expected to have increased by 2.8% in November from a year earlier, slowing from a 3.1% increase in October.
Imports were estimated to have expanded 1% from a year earlier, resulting in a deficit of 688.9 billion yen ($4.50 billion). Imports rose 0.4% in October.
“Global trade remained sluggish but the weakness of the yen since mid-September appears to have boosted the value of exports,” said Takeshi Minami, chief economist at the Norinchukin Research Institute.
Machinery orders, which are highly volatile but ahead of capital spending for the next six to nine months, may have risen 1.2% in October from the previous month, after falling 0.7% in September, a according to the poll.
The finance ministry will publish the trade data at 8:50 am on December 18 (2350 GMT on December 17), and the Cabinet Office will announce the machinery orders data at 8:50 am on December 16 (2350 GMT on December 17). 15).
($1 = 152.9800 yen)
(Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
