The Producer Price Index of Japan rose by 0.8 percent year-on-year in February 2019, climbing from a 0.6 percent increase in the previous month and above market expectations of 0.7 percent. The uptick was mainly explained by prices petroleum and coal products, which fell at a softer 2.1 percent following a 4.2 percent decline. Non-ferrous metals also declined at a softer pace (-5.6 percent vs -7.4 percent). Meantime, general purpose machinery inflation jumped to 0.8 percent from 0.3 percent and prices for production machinery rose by 1.5 percent compared to 1.1 percent in January. On a monthly basis, producer prices rebounded 0.2 percent after a 0.6 percent decline in the previous month. Producer Prices Change in Japan averaged 1.42 percent from 1961 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 33.90 percent in February of 1974 and a record low of -8.60 percent in August of 2009.
Producer Prices Change in Japan is expected to be 0.90 percent by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate Producer Prices Change in Japan to stand at 2.40 in 12 months time. In the long-term, the Japan Producer Prices Change is projected to trend around 1.80 percent in 2020, according to our econometric models.