However, it is also true that the year-on-year rate of change in the core CPI was either more or less flat or increasing for 19 consecutive months up to February 2018.
It is better not to be too optimistic about the outlook, but many of the factors that have been delaying inflation are likely to be resolved gradually as the economy continues on an expanding trend. Firms' moves to raise wages have gradually begun to spread, as suggested by the results of the annual spring labor-management wage negotiations in 2018.