China Consumer Price Inflation Rises; Factory Price Growth Slows
(RTTNews) - China's consumer price inflation accelerated at the end of the year 2022, owing to higher food prices, while factory gate prices continued to fall, albeit at a slower pace.
The consumer price index, or CPI, rose 1.8 percent year-on-year in December, as expected, after a 1.6 percent increase in November, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed Thursday.
At the same time, core inflation, which excludes food and energy prices, edged up to 0.7 percent from 0.6 percent.
Food price inflation surged to 4.8 percent from 3.7 percent in the previous month. Non-food prices posted a steady increase of 1.1 percent.
On a monthly basis, consumer prices remained flat, confounding expectations for a 0.1 percent fall.
For the whole year of 2022, the consumer price inflation averaged 2.0 percent, which was well below the government's full year target of around 3 percent.
Producer prices declined 0.7 percent from the last year, following a more sharp 1.3 percent decrease in November, separate data from the NBS showed. Month-on-month, producer prices decreased 0.5 percent.
In 2022, producer prices advanced 4.1 percent from the previous year. Inflation is expected to rise over the coming quarters, Capital Economics' economist Zichun Huang said. However, inflation in China is unlikely to surge to the same extent as in many other economies as they reopened.
"And we doubt inflation will impose any major constraints on the PBOC's ability to support the economy," the economist added.
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