TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s core consumer prices rose 1.0 percent in October from a year earlier, steady from the previous month in a sign the economy lacks the momentum needed to accelerate inflation to the central bank’s elusive 2 percent target.

With the gain due mostly to higher energy costs, the Bank of Japan may face increasing difficulty achieving consistent price growth as escalating global trade frictions and slowing Chinese demand cloud the outlook for the export-reliant economy.

The increase in the nationwide core consumer price index (CPI), which strips away the effect of volatile food costs, matched a median market forecast.

The so-called core-core CPI, a more closely watched gauge the BOJ uses to exclude the effect of both fresh food and energy costs, stood at 0.4 percent in October, unchanged from the previous month, government data showed on Thursday.

Stubbornly soft inflation has dashed the BOJ’s hopes that solid economic growth would translate into higher prices, forcing the central bank to maintain its huge stimulus despite unwelcome side-effects such as the erosion of financial institutions’ profits from years of near-zero interest rates.

Many analysts expect Japan’s economy to rebound in the current quarter from a contraction in July-September, though trade frictions and next year’s scheduled domestic sales tax hike darken the outlook.

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