TOKYO, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- Japan's wholesale prices in September surged 6.3 percent from the previous year, logging the largest rise since September 2008, as the costs of energy and raw material went higher, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) said Tuesday.
Prices of inter-company traded goods rose for the seventh consecutive month and hit higher from the 5.8-percent increase in both July and August.
By product, lumber and wood product prices jumped 48.3 percent, thanks to demand stimulated by the increasing economic activity in the United States and China.
Coal and petroleum product prices soared 32.4 percent, revealing higher prices of crude oil.
Prices of iron and steel increased 17.8 percent and those of nonferrous metals rose 27.0 percent during the economic recovery, according to the BOJ data.
Import prices surged 31.3 percent, the sharpest gain since January 1981, obviously boosted by the yen's recent weakness against the U.S. dollar, with export prices climbing 11.0 percent.
The uptrend of wholesale prices, however, has a limited impact on consumer prices, which complicates the BOJ's efforts of employing bold monetary easing policy to accelerate inflation toward the 2-percent target. Enditem
