BOJ Keeps Economic Views Unchanged for All 9 Regions

Tokyo, July 9 (Jiji Press)–The Bank of Japan kept its economic assessments unchanged for all nine regions of the country in a quarterly report released Thursday. The report was adopted at the day’s meeting of managers of the central bank’s regional branches held at its headquarters in Tokyo. Some branch chiefs quoted food and daily goods companies as saying that they are planning to raise their product prices this summer or later, due to higher material costs triggered by the Middle East turmoil. Amid growing momentum to pass on higher costs to product prices, many material-related companies said that the pace of such moves is accelerating in business-to-business transactions. A supermarket in Yokohama, the capital of Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, said it will raise the prices of some items to offset higher packaging material costs stemming from the Middle East tensions. Kenji Fujita, manager of the BOJ’s branch in Osaka, western Japan, said at a press conference after the meeting that “upstream and midstream companies are passing on higher costs faster” than when material prices rose following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Products closer to consumers would likely see a certain level of price hikes as well. Meanwhile, possibilities of substantial decreases in exports and production are receding thanks to progress in procurement from sources other than the Middle East, according to branch managers. An electric machinery maker in Osaka said that it has raised its earnings forecast again and again as its business is performing very well thanks to robust demand related to artificial intelligence. The BOJ said in the report that economies in the nine regions have been “recovering moderately,” “on a moderate recovery trend,” “picking up” or “picking up moderately.” The report added the phrase “the impact of the situation in the Middle East” for the Kanto-Koshinetsu eastern to central region, whose economy “has been recovering moderately.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]