TOKYO, March 21 (Xinhua) -- As consumer prices continue to rise, people in Japan are most troubled by the increased cost of electricity, Japan's newspaper Mainichi Shimbun's latest survey showed Tuesday.
Twenty-three percent of 500 respondents answered electricity to the nationwide mobile phone-based poll.
Another 16 percent of those polled on March 18 and March 19 said food, groceries and the like, while eggs were in third place with 10 percent, followed by gasoline and heating oil with 6 percent.
The surging cost of generating electricity due to the Ukraine crisis and the weakened yen has raised energy bills and seems to be a burden for a large number of people, Mainichi Shimbun said.
Meanwhile, egg prices are soaring in Japan as the current avian flu season sees a record number of birds marked for culling. In a similar poll last April, only one person named eggs as the item with a price hike that most affected them. ■