Japanese annual wholesale inflation hit a 27-year high of 3 percent in January due to rising oil and other raw material costs, but the Bank of Japan is seen likely to sit tight on rates in the face of slowing global growth.
The data follows a pessimistic outlook from financial chiefs of the Group of Seven industrial countries in a meeting in Tokyo on Saturday overshae United states in the wake of the subprime crisis.
Rising energy prices helped to worsen Japanese consumer sentiment to a 4-1/2-year low in January and pushed up imports, resulting in a bigger decline than expected in the nation's current account surplus in December from a year earlier.
Fears that Japan could be hit by a US slowdown have prompted investors to speculate the BOJ may follow the US Federal Reserve in cutting interest rates later this year.
While Japan has long sought to escape deflation, economists said price increases forced by rising energy and material costs, rather than increasing demand, was not the kind of inflation Japan wanted.
"The rise in wholesale prices doesn't mean it will help the BOJ raise rates in the near future because the BOJ is fully aware of the risk of the economy from cost-push inflation," said Azusa Kato, an economist at BNP Paribas.
"Our main scenario is for the BOJ to sit tight until late 2009 but it could cut rates in April-June this year if the US economy suffers a further pronounced slowdown."
The 3.0 percent rise in the corporate goods price index, which tracks wholesale prices of goods, in January from a year earlier, was the highest annual rise since a 3.8 percent rise in March 1981 and topped market expectations for a 2.8 percent rise.
The BOJ has stuck to its stance of gradually lifting rates from rock-bottom levels as long as the positive economic cycle is intact, but BOJ Governor Toshihiko Fukui has recently admitted that such a mechanism was weakening.
Japan's annual core consumer price index, which excludes volatile fresh fruit, vegetable and fish prices but includes oil products, hit a decade-high 0.8 percent in December, due largely to surging oil and other commodity prices.
Consumers are already feeling the pain. The consumer sentiment index fell to 37.5 in January from 38.0 in December, a government survey showed. It was the lowest since June 2003.
Japan's current account surplus fell 4.7 percent in December from a year earlier, against the 3.6 percent decline expected by analysts, reflecting rises in imports on higher energy costs and a fall in Japanese exports to the United States.