Japan retail sales up for 9th month led by tourism help

Japanese retail sales rose for a ninth straight month in November, data showed on Tuesday, as the lifting of COVID-19 border controls and the government’s domestic travel subsidy helped consumer demand.

But from the previous month, sales fell from October, with price increases in daily necessities weighing on Japanese households as the nation’s core consumer inflation rate hit a fresh 40-year high, indicating price hikes were broadening.

A recovery in private consumption, which makes up more than half of Japan’s economy, is key to driving growth in the economy, which unexpectedly shrank in the third quarter.

Retail sales grew 2.6% from the year earlier but short of a median forecast of 3.7%. The pace of annual growth in sales, a barometer of private consumption, slowed from 4.4% in October and 4.8% in September.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, retail sales slipped 1.1% in November from the previous month, down for the first time in five months.

Data showed last week that visitor arrivals to Japan jumped to nearly 1 million in November, the first full month after the country scrapped COVID-19 curbs that effectively halted tourism for more than two years.

A government domestic travel subsidy campaign to help the pandemic-hit tourism industry, which started in mid-October, also encouraged people to spend on travel and travel goods.