China’s consumer price index (CPI) mildly increased by 0.9% year-on-year in February, flat with a month ago according to National Bureau of Statistics
The mild consumer inflation was mainly attributed to the decline of food prices with pork prices dropping a significant 42.5% year-on-year in February. Prices of industrial consumer goods rose 3.1% year-on-year, up from 2.5% in January, according to the NBS. On a month-on-month basis, the CPI grew by 0.6%, compared with a 0.4 percent decrease in January this year.
The growth in core CPI registered at 1.1% increase in February, down from 1.2 percent in the previous month. Core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, is deemed as a better gauge of the supply-demand relationship in the economy.
The accelerated month-on-month growth of consumer inflation could be attributed to factors, such as the Spring Festival holiday and the fluctuations in global energy prices. On the other hand, the month-on-month growth in PPI is affected by rising prices of global commodities such as crude oil and nonferrous metals.
China’s producer price index (PPI), which gauges factory-gate prices, up 8.8 percent year-on-year in February, down from 9.1 percent in January.
The carryover effect of last year’s price changes contributed around 8.4 percentage points to the PPI growth, while new price increases contributed around 0.4 percentage points, the NBS data showed.
On a monthly basis, the PPI grew by 0.5 percent in February as compared to the 0.2 percent decrease in January.
