TOKYO—Japan’s consumer inflation rate hit a 41-year high of 4 percent in December, as prices for everything from burgers to gas surged.
That rate is still relatively low, compared to some other nations, including the U.S. Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, has been fending off deflation, or chronically falling prices, for decades.
The last time core consumer prices rose that much was December 1981, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said.
The Federal Reserve and many other central banks have raised interest rates to tame inflation but the Bank of Japan has kept its benchmark rate at a longstanding low level of minus 0.1 percent….