Japan’s key inflation gauge picked up for the first time in three months, keeping the Bank of Japan on course for another interest-rate hike this year.

The consumer price index (CPI) excluding fresh food rose 1.6% in June from a year earlier, the internal affairs ministry said Friday. The reading was in line with the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

A measure that excludes both fresh food and energy — closely watched by the BOJ as a gauge of underlying inflation — climbed 1.7%, as did the overall CPI.