TOKYO, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Japan's core consumer prices increased 0.9 percent in December from a year earlier, the government said in a report on Friday.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the core consumer price index, excluding fresh food prices due to their volatility, increased for the 12th consecutive month, on the heels of a 0.9 percent rise logged a month earlier.

The index, however, still remained a long way below the Bank of Japan's (BOJ) 2 percent inflation target.

As for CPI for Tokyo's 23 wards, which is released a month before nationwide data and seen as a gauge of wider price moves, the index gained 0.7 percent in January from a year earlier, following a 0.8 rise logged a month earlier, the latest data set showed.

Booking a positive reading for the first time in two years, the CPI for 2017 increased 0.5 percent, the ministry also said.

The central bank here has unrolled a number of aggressive monetary easing measures in a bid to overcome decades of deflationary pressure in Japan and the government is urging companies to increase wages in a bid to spur consumer spending.

Despite an on-year rise in wholesale prices, however, the BOJ is still struggling to convert the effects into a significant rise in inflation.

The CPI is a measure estimating the average price of consumer goods and services purchased by households.

A consumer price index measures a price change for a constant market basket of goods and services from one period to the next within the same area, city, region, or nation.

The index is determined by measuring the price of a standard group of goods meant to represent the typical "market basket" of a typical urban consumer.

The percent change in the CPI is a measure estimating inflation.