Japan's September wholesale prices decline 3.2 percent

Japan's wholesale prices declined 3.2 percent from a year earlier in September, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) said Friday.

According to the central bank's preliminary report, the monthly drop was in line with market expectations and comes on the heels of a 3.6 percent drop logged a month earlier.

The BOJ said that index of corporate goods prices stood at 98.8 against the 2010 base of 100.

The bank said that exports inched up 0.1 percent on month, but retreated 1.6 percent on year, compared to imports which increased 0.5 percent on month but slid 7 percent on year.

Prices for manufactured goods and chemicals rose among exports, but those for electronic parts and transport equipment declined in the reporting period, the bank's report showed.

Import prices, meanwhile, for electronics, metals and petroleum rose, the central bank also said.

The bank has highlighted recently that volatile commodity prices such as for crude oil and nonferrous metals and slumping demand in Asia as contributing to Japan's falling wholesale prices.

The corporate goods price index in Japan, on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis, is comprehensively tracked as these supply-side price pressures and increases in the index often precede upward movement in the CPI.

If a decrease in the CGPI is followed by a fall in the CPI, however, concerns about deflation may prompt the BOJ to take action regarding its interest rates. If the situation is reversed the opposite will happen. Endit