TOKYO—Japan’s core consumer inflation quickened to 2.8 percent in August, hitting its fastest annual pace in nearly eight years and exceeding the central bank’s 2 percent target for a fifth straight month as price pressure from raw materials and yen weakness broadened.
The strength of August inflation reinforced growing suspicions among economists that price pressure will last longer than the Bank of Japan (BOJ) has been expecting, though many still expect no immediate change to its ultra-easy policy.
The BOJ will on Thursday end a two-day policy meeting at which analysts expect it to consider the fragility of economic recovery in deciding to hold both short-and long-term interest rates near zero….