Tokyo, Safar 25, 1438, Nov 25, 2016, SPA -- Consumer prices in Japan were down 0.4 per cent year-on-year for October for the eighth straight month of decline amid sluggish consumer spending and falling global energy prices, the government said Friday. According to dpa, te figures were far off the 2 per cent inflation target that the Bank of Japan set in April 2013, when it launched an aggressive monetary easing campaign. The core consumer price index, excluding fresh food, stood at 99.8 against a base of 100 for 2015, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed to pull the world's third-largest economy out of a deflationary cycle when he took office in December 2012, but his government has so far failed to do so. --SPA 11:34 LOCAL TIME 08:34 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w276667