The year-on-year rate of change in the consumer price index (CPI) for all items less fresh food (core CPI) has been at around 0.5 percent recently (Chart 6). With the price stability target set at 2 percent, the Bank has been conducting large-scale monetary easing, but there is still some way to go before achieving the target.
However, firms have been raising prices of a wider range of products recently, and the output gap, which I will touch upon later, has remained positive.