The Bank of Japan announced that underlying inflation had reached 2%. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications CPI stood at 2.1%, with the factors behind the difference and the launch of publication for a new measure explained.
The Bank of Japan published its Outlook for Economic Activity and Prices and judged that underlying inflation had reached the 2% price stability target. It has now entered a phase focused on keeping inflation at that level. At the same time, it has been pointed out that the general inflation measure, the consumer price index (CPI), has multiple figures.
Looking at the September 2026 figures, the CPI published by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, excluding fresh food, was up 2.1% year on year, while the Bank of Japan's core measure, which excludes certain factors, was approximately 3.2%, a difference of 1.1 percentage points. The difference reflects variations in how the impact of inflation-relief measures is excluded.
The Bank of Japan began publishing analytical data for its new core measure, which supports its judgment that inflation had reached 2%, on 26 March this year. This may have produced a difference in how inflation is captured compared with the CPI published by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
The difference between the two figures is said to affect perceptions of prices among households and the assessment of price increases in daily life, but the article does not conclude that either figure is correct.