date:Apr 07, 2014
before the sales tax rate rose to 8 percent from 5 percent, supermarket prices were down 1.0 percent on year, the index showed on Friday.
The rise over the first two days shows that the tax increase is steadily being passed along to consumers, Watanabe told Reuters.
The index, based on point-of-sales data for as many as 200,000 food items and daily necessities, offers the first broad indication of how businesses are reacting to the tax hike amid concerns that it could derail the recovery in t