This is the first time since the late 1990s, when Japan’s economy fell into deflation, that the year-on-year rate of change in the CPI has been in positive territory for such a long period. Japan’s economy is no longer in deflation, which is commonly defined as a situation where prices are declining in a sustainable manner.
•  Second, the way the budget deficit was defined in Israel differed from that in the rest of the world, so that our measured deficit was significantly lower than it would have been had the generally-accepted definition been used.