Inflation in Japan is fast spreading to the largest share of items in two decades as the Bank of Japan waits for wage growth to accompany a rise in prices.

The proportion of items that saw price gains in Japan’s core consumer price basket climbed to 69.2% last month, the most in data going back to January 2001, according to a release from the central bank published Tuesday.

The result is unlikely to persuade Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda to change his easing stance. He’s repeatedly insisted that the current input-cost driven inflation needs to first turn more sustainable, backed by wage growth and a recovery from the pandemic.

Still, signs of widespread price increases are likely to keep fueling speculation over a pivot toward normalization. Bond traders and hedge funds are already betting that the BOJ will be forced to raise its 10-year yield ceiling or abandon its yield curve control framework altogether.

Tuesday’s report also showed the trimmed mean, another underlying price trend indicator, reaching a fresh high by rising 1.5%.

Kuroda said this week the BOJ will maintain its ultra-loose monetary policy as the economy has not been affected much by the global inflationary trend, stressing the country’s 15-year experience with deflation is keeping wage growth subdued.

Japan’s core consumer inflation hit 2.1% for two straight months in May, but the increase was due almost entirely to soaring energy prices, Kuroda was quoted as saying in a video recording of a seminar released on Wednesday.

While core consumer inflation may stay around 2% for about a year, it is likely to slow to around 1% in the next fiscal year beginning in April 2023, he said.

“Unlike other economies, the Japanese economy has not been much affected by the global inflationary trend, so monetary policy will continue to be accommodative,” he said, according to the recording released by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

In the aftermath of Japan’s 15-year deflation that lasted through 2013, the country’s firms have become “very cautious” in raising prices and wages, Kuroda said in the seminar held in Basel on Sunday.

“The economy recovered and companies recorded high profits. The labor market became quite tight. But wages didn’t increase much and prices didn’t increase much,” he said.

Kuroda said it was “extremely difficult” to assess the impact various structural changes, such as geopolitical risks and digitalization, could have on the global economy.

“In any case, the mandate of central banks will remain the same. That is to stabilize prices for economic development with our monetary policies, although the policy transmission channel may change in a rapidly changing world with uncertainties,” he said.