The Bank of Japan will release a new inflation indicator every month, possibly to support its stance on interest rate hikes.

BlockBeats News, March 26 — The Bank of Japan announced that starting this month, it will release monthly indicator data used to assess core CPI. The data will be published under the name “Core CPI Reference Indicator” and will be released at 14:00 on the second business day after Japan’s official CPI is published.

Investinglive analyst Justin Low said that, from the background, the Bank of Japan has previously faced considerable skepticism because Japan’s inflation data has become somewhat confusing. Japan’s core CPI year-over-year rate for February has fallen below the critical 2% level, but the Bank of Japan still seems determined to continue its tightening monetary policy. The bank wants to provide evidence that the actual underlying inflation pressures remain strong. It believes that measures like energy subsidies implemented by the Japanese government have artificially suppressed CPI data. Therefore, the newly released “Core CPI Reference Indicator” will serve as a “denoised” interpretation of inflation figures. This is mainly to demonstrate to the public and markets that they are still on the right track with their monetary policy. If there is any difference, it can also be interpreted as a slight resistance by the Bank of Japan to the government’s intentions, as Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida hopes the Bank of Japan will keep interest rates unchanged.