Consumer prices in Japan, excluding volatile fresh food prices, fell 1.3 percent in January from a year earlier marking the 11th straight month of decline, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said in a report on Friday.

The core consumer price index (CPI) stood at 99.4 against the base of 100 for 2005, down 0.2 percent from December, the report said.

Additionally the core CPI for Tokyo’s 23 wards in February fell 1.8 percent from a year before to 98.6, the ministry said on Friday in a preliminary report.

In Japan prices for food rose 1 percent to 102.9 from a month earlier, but fell 1.9 percent on year and the cost of utilities rose 0.4 percent from December to 104.1, but on year fell 5.8 percent.

Transport and communication prices slipped 0.1 percent from December to 97.8, but rose on year by 1.9 percent, the government report stated.

In Tokyo specifically food prices edged up 0.1 percent in February from a month earlier, but fell on year by 1.5 percent, the ministry said adding that utility costs had risen 0.7 percent from January to 102.3, but had fallen on year by 9.2 percent.

Housing slipped 0.1 percent from January to 99.5 and fell 0.5 percent on year and education stood at a preliminary 103.3 against the base of 100 for 2005, unchanged from January, but down 0.5 percent on year, the ministry said.

"Prices won’t stop falling until the recovery spreads to households," Hiroshi Watanabe, a senior economist at Daiwa Institute of Research, said before the report was published. " Japan’s deflation will continue through fiscal 2012," beyond the Bank of Japan’s (BOJ) projections, he said.

BOJ Deputy Governor Hirohide Yamaguchi said earlier this week that prices may not be improving as quickly as he had expected and Finance Minister Naoto Kan has urged the central bank to do more to beat deflation as the government’s ability to spur the economy through consumer spending is constrained by the largest debt in the developed world.

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.