Japan nears deflation as consumer prices stop rising

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32081871

The article notes that annual inflation in Japan has reached zero in February, moving away from their central bank's target of 2%. Economists noted that this news has put pressure on the Bank of Japan to employ expansionary monetary policy to offset falling oil prices in order to continue to steer the Japanese economy toward recession following heavy recessionary periods since the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997. The article further notes falling deflation and increasing wages, leading to a hypothesis of "good deflation" as consumer confidence should increase, in turn increasing demand recovery on the domestic side.

This article poses an interesting monetary challenge: traditionally, inflation has been seen as a sign of recession or depression, given that prices of products are dropping, denoting a lack of growth in wages or macroeconomic product. However, low inflation can potentially offset prices rising beyond points of affordability or otherwise artificially high price points, and can be relatively harmless if coupled with strong economic vitals in other sectors. Nonetheless, this will be a factor on which to keep an eye as it could indicate a negative growth trend in the Japanese economy, which could, in turn, knock-on to markets in Asia and the world in general given other indicators of global economic lag, such as recent figures coming from Europe indicating possible double/triple-dip recession.