Japan's Economy Minister Kiuchi says government decision whether to declare official end to deflation will be made looking comprehensively at CPI, GDP deflator and background behind moves in underlying inflation

• Don't think conditions met for the government to declare an official end to deflation.
• Hope the BoJ guides policy appropriately based on joint statement with the government stipulating need for stable and sustainable price stability.

The formal end-of-deflation declaration is a distinct Japanese institution with no real peer elsewhere: it is a political prerequisite rather than a statistical one, and past normalization episodes in Japan have shown governments preferring to keep it in reserve until wage and price dynamics look durable, since declaring victory prematurely and having to walk it back carries more political cost than waiting. The read-across for BoJ pricing runs through the government-BoJ joint statement, which ties the inflation target to stable and sustainable attainment; a minister publicly saying conditions are not yet met is effectively a signal that the government will not bless an aggressive normalization pace, and comments of this kind from the economy portfolio have historically leaned dovish on timing without disputing direction. The mechanism to note is that the declaration matters less for the next meeting than for the political cover around subsequent ones, so it tends to shape the pace of expected tightening rather than its existence. The reference to underlying inflation and the GDP deflator points to the usual official checklist, where the distinction is between import-driven price gains and domestically generated wage-price momentum, and only the latter has historically counted as sufficient. Worth watching is whether the phrasing is echoed by other cabinet members and whether BoJ commentary continues to run ahead of the government's comfort level, a gap that in past episodes has been resolved in the government's favour on timing. As jawboning rather than action, the signal is about cadence.