TOKYO -- Japan has entered a new phase in defeating deflation, the Cabinet Office said Thursday, but weak inflation points to the continued need to stoke wage growth -- a challenge around which Prime Minster Shinzo Abe is trying to rally cash-rich companies.
All four of the indicators the Abe government uses to measure progress away from the "D-word" read positive for the July-September quarter, the Cabinet Office reported at a meeting of the the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy. It marked the first such alignment in 25 years.
