Japan’s consumer prices fell for a fourth month, indicating the Bank of Japan (8301) may need to do more to counter deflation after expanding monetary easing.

Consumer prices excluding fresh food dropped 0.1 percent in January from a year earlier, the statistics bureau said today in Tokyo. The median estimate was for a 0.2 percent decline, in a Bloomberg News survey of 28 economists.

“The data reconfirm Japan’s deflation is deeply rooted,” said Masamichi Adachi, senior economist at JP Morgan Securities in Tokyo and a former central bank official. “The Bank of Japan will probably have to act more aggressively going forward.”

The central bank last month set an inflation goal of 1 percent and increased bond purchases by 10 trillion yen ($123 billion) to aid a recovery in the world’s third-biggest economy.

-- Editors: Paul Panckhurst, Lily Nonomiya

To contact the reporter on this story: Toru Fujioka in Tokyo at tfujioka1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Panckhurst at ppanckhurst@bloomberg.net