Declines in wholesale prices picked up speed in February as the global recession cut the cost of energy and commodities, the Bank of Japan said Wednesday.
Producer prices, the costs that companies pay for energy and raw materials, sank 1.1 percent in February from a year earlier after falling a revised 0.3 percent in January.
Sliding commodity costs, coupled with what economists say may become Japan's deepest recession since 1945, could herald a return to deflation that plagued the nation for almost a decade until 2005. In China, both consumer prices and producer prices dropped last month as global growth cooled.