China’s inflation grows 1.1% year-on-year in June

Shanghai, China, Jul 9 (EFE).- China’s consumer price index (CPI), the main indicator of inflation, increased by 1.1 percent year-on-year in June, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Friday.

This is lower than the 1.3 percent inflation recorded in the previous month and is also below analysts’ forecasts, which predicted that the CPI would remain unchanged or increase.

This is the fourth consecutive month of increase in the indicator after it contracted by 0.3 percent and 0.2 percent respectively in January and February amid some Covid-19 outbreaks.

Compared to May’s data, however, consumer prices fell 0.4 percent due to low seasonal demand, according to the NBS.

Another factor highlighted by NBS statistician Dong Lijuan is a another drop in pork prices, 36.5 percent year-on-year and 13.6 percent compared to May, owing to a recovery in the meat’s production after the African swine flu epidemic, which since mid-2018 has wiped out tens of millions of the animals in China and raised serious problems in production and volatility in prices.

Food and non-food prices followed opposite paths. While the former declined by 1.7 percent year-on-year in June, the latter rose by the same proportion, driven by higher costs of fuel for transportation.

The NBS also released the producer price index (PPI), an indicator that measures and tracks wholesale inflation, which grew 8.8 percent year-on-year in June.

This is a slight drop from the indicator’s 9 percent growth in May, the highest in almost 13 years, but continues to reflect the pressure exerted on the sector by the increase in the price of raw materials, which Beijing is trying to bring under control. EFE

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