Japan’s core inflation picked up slightly in March from a year earlier, but remained distant from the Bank of Japan’s ambitious 2 percent target in a sign of rising pressure on the central bank. Over the past year, policymakers have had to contend with a slowdown in global demand as the Sino-U.S. tariff war put a dent on world trade and hit Japanese exporters. This has made the Bank of Japan’s task of generating inflation even more difficult. Data on Friday showed a 0.8 percent increase in the nationwide core consumer price index (CPI), which includes oil products but excludes volatile fresh food costs, compared with ... (full story)