Japan's latest inflation figures show that in the past year, consumers have been hit with the biggest price jumps in over 4 decades, with especially severe increases for food and electricity.

The internal affairs ministry said that the Consumer Price Index for fiscal 2022 was 3 percent higher than in fiscal 2021. The reading excludes fresh items, because weather conditions cause their prices to fluctuate widely.
This marks the biggest leap since fiscal 1981, when an oil shock was pushing up prices. Japan's fiscal year starts April and ends in March.

On a monthly-basis, the figure in March rose 3.1 percent from a year earlier and February marked the same margin of increase. But that was a slowdown from January, when a 4.2 percent increase was the biggest in 41 years. One reason for the slowdown was government subsidies for household energy use.