China’s consumer inflation slowed to its lowest level in 14 months in May as food prices rose at a slower rate, led by an easing in pork prices as the country’s African swine fever crisis of more than a year showed further signs of tapering off, official data showed Wednesday.
The consumer price index (CPI), which measures the prices of a select basket of consumer goods and services, rose 2.4% year-on-year last month, down from 3.3% growth in April and marking the fourth consecutive month of deceleration, according to data (link in Chinese) from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The reading was slightly lower than the median estimate of 2.5% growth from a Caixin survey (link in Chinese) of economists.
Pork prices, which were one of the key drivers of inflation for last year, rose 81.7% year-on-year in May, easing from 96.9% growth the previous month.
The core CPI — which excludes more-volatile food and energy prices and which economists say better reflects long-term inflation trends — rose 1.1% last month, unchanged from April. Both supply and demand improved as the domestic Covid-19 situation stayed stable in May, the NBS said (link in Chinese).
Factory gate prices remained in deflationary territory, declining at the steepest rate since March 2016. The producer price index, which gauges changes in the prices of goods circulated among manufacturers and mining companies, fell 3.7% (link in Chinese) year-on-year last month, steeper than a 3.1% drop in April and the median estimate of a 3.3% decline from the Caixin survey.
Contact reporter Guo Yingzhe (yingzheguo@caixin.com) and editor Yang Ge (geyang@caixin.com)
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