Inflation a worry for most economies, but not Japan

By ELAINE KURTENBACH
AP Business Writer

The Federal Reserve and most other central banks are shifting into inflation-fighting mode as pandemic recoveries power ahead despite renewed outbreaks of coronavirus. But while surging prices are haunting consumers and confounding economic planners in the U.S. and other countries, they’re still a distant concern in Japan. Its economy, the world’s third largest, began slowing in the early 1990s with the bursting of a financial bubble and has never really regained momentum. The Bank of Japan on Friday said it would be scaling back commercial paper and corporate bond purchases but will continue pumping tens of billions of dollars into the economy, which has yet to attain its elusive 2% inflation target.