General

As the impact of the epidemic on the global supply chain continues to appear, prices have recently risen in many countries and regions. In Japan, the retail prices of many products have been raised since October, and local media said that Japan is ushering in an "autumn price increase."

The surge in cost prices of most commodities has ushered in a wave of price increases in Japan, which has been in deflation for decades. The prices of various fruits and vegetables, legume products, and margarine have soared by 5%, 10%, and 15% in the past few months.

Japanese government officials said: Japan’s wholesale inflation in September increased by 6.3% year-on-year, the largest increase in 13 years.

Japan's August CPI rose for the first time in 13 months, ending the country's longest deflationary period in history since 2011. Food inflation is still close to 4% in the first half of 2020, and it has been below zero for one year.

According to a report by the Japanese business media "BUSINESSHALA", consumers and companies all over Japan are now facing a sharp increase in commodity prices, and these commodities have hardly increased in price during the past decades of austerity in Japan. So why are the prices of Japanese goods generally rising?

The reason for the price increase is mainly due to the increase in the price of raw materials such as soybeans and other edible oils.

Japan's edible soybeans rely on imports for 80%, and major producing areas such as the United States have caused soybean prices to skyrocket due to factors such as abnormal weather.

This reason has also affected Japan's tofu, whose prices have been relatively stable for 30 years. Retail prices in some supermarkets have rarely risen by nearly 10%.

Coffee is also rising in price due to insufficient raw materials. Affected by the price increase of coffee beans in the international market, the price of 14 coffee powders in Japan has risen by up to 20%.

Shizuo Mori, the owner of a Japanese cafe, said that the wholesale cost of his main products has risen by 5% in the past three months. He also said that the salaries of salaried workers are not high, so when the price is too high, everyone will stop drinking coffee.

"BUSINESSHALA" pointed out that although similar businesses have not raised prices to customers, price pressure is squeezing their bottom line. And they know that regular customers in the store have a low tolerance for rising commodity prices.

This round of raw material price increases has also spread to Japan's catering industry.

Due to the suspension of some meat processing plants in the United States during the epidemic, the price of imported beef in Japan has risen. One of the giants of Japanese beef rice, "Matsuya", recently announced a large-scale price increase in Japan.

The price of a bowl of beef rice rose from 320 yen to 380 yen, an increase of nearly 20%.

It is not only the catering industry that is under the pressure of rising prices. Many food companies have increased the prices of their products.

Dairy manufacturer Meiji Holdings has increased the price of its margarine by 12.8%, which is the first increase for its products since 2008. Other food companies have also increased the prices of their main product lines for the first time.

On the other hand, it was affected by the rising prices of liquefied natural gas and coal.

Japan's 10 large power companies have all raised their electricity prices from this month. Taking Tokyo Electric Power Company as an example, it is estimated that the average monthly household electricity bill will reach 7,238 yen (about 420 yuan), an increase of 2% from September.

In addition, four large gas companies have also raised gas prices. As the current supply of various raw materials in the international market is still unstable, this round of price increases in Japan is expected to be difficult to ease in the short term.

In addition, it is unbelievable that Japan is even delusional to attribute the inflation problem to China through soy sauce.

"Nihon Keizai Shimbun" reported today that Japan and the United States import more than 10 billion U.S. dollars of food each year, and they are also the main export markets for Chinese food. Both Japan and the United States will suffer "the pain of China's inflationary pressure."

Last year, China's soy sauce production reached 7.008 million tons, of which only 15,7793.2 tons were exported, and the export value was only 150 million U.S. dollars.

It should be pointed out that China's food exports are extremely small compared to total exports, and the value of food exports in 2019 only accounted for 0.6% of total exports.

The Japanese media apparently wanted to blame the inflation problem on China's exports, believing that China exported inflation to the outside world.