Japan’s McDonald’s fast-food restaurants would raise prices on about 60 percent of its offerings to customers, fueled by rising input costs and exchange-rate fluctuations, the company said yesterday.
It marks the company’s second set of price increases this year as Japan grapples with inflationary pressures and a slide in the yen to a 24-year low, making imported ingredients more expensive.
From Friday, the cost of the signature Big Mac hamburger is to increase to ￥410 (US$2.85) from ￥390, McDonald’s Holding Co Japan Ltd said in a statement, reflecting increases of ￥10 to ￥30 on many items.
Photo: REUTERS
A Big Mac costs US$5.15 in the US, according to The Economist magazine’s index of prices worldwide. The price difference implied that Japan’s currency was undervalued by 45 percent, according to the gauge when it was last updated in July.
McDonald’s Japan is raising prices for the second time this year on its cheeseburgers, which would cost ￥180 each from Friday from ￥140 at the beginning of the year.
Rising production costs and the yen’s slide have spurred price increases by 60 percent of major Japanese restaurants, according to a survey issued this month by Tokyo Shoko Research.
Separately, Mister Donut shops in Japan are to raise prices on most items by about 7.4 percent from Nov. 25, said its parent company, Duskin Co.
Meanwhile, Japanese Minister of Finance Shunichi Suzuki continued to show readiness to act against speculative moves in the foreign exchange market, following Thursday’s direct actions that triggered major yen gains.
“We’re strongly concerned about speculative moves, and there’s no change in our stance that we’ll respond as needed,” Suzuki told reporters yesterday. “We’ll continue to monitor markets with urgency, and a deep sense of concern.”
Japan intervened to prop up the yen for the first time since 1998 on Thursday.
The move came after the yen fell past the key psychological level of ￥145 against the greenback, after Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda showed determination to stick with ultra-low rates for even longer than expected.
Kuroda said the government’s intervention in the foreign exchange market last week was appropriate given the recent volatility in the yen.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
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