Japan’s Inflation Accelerates as Abe Seeks Wage Gains

Japan’s inflation accelerated in December, industrial output gained and a measure of demand for workers strengthened, signaling gains for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s campaign to end two decades of stagnation.

Prices excluding fresh food increased 1.3 percent from a year earlier, the statistics bureau said today in Tokyo, above a median estimate of 1.2 percent in a Bloomberg survey of 32 economists. Industrial production rose 1.1 percent from the previous month, while the number of jobs for every seeker rose to 1.03, exceeding 1 for the first the time since October 2007.