Japan Inflation Slowest in Six Months Challenges Kuroda

Japan’s inflation slowed to its lowest pace in half a year, underlining the challenge to central bank chief Haruhiko Kuroda’s efforts to reflate the world’s third-biggest economy.

Consumer prices excluding fresh food increased 3.0 percent in September from a year earlier, the statistics bureau said today in Tokyo, in line with a median projection in a Bloomberg News survey of economists. Stripped of the effect of April’s sales-tax increase, core inflation -- the Bank of Japan’s key measure -- was 1.0 percent.