China’s consumer inflation ticked up slightly last month as floods in southern China and a new wave of Covid-19 infections in Beijing caused vegetable prices to rise, an official statement (link in Chinese) said Thursday. At the same time, downward pressure on factory-gate prices eased as domestic demand recovered and global commodity prices picked up.
The consumer price index (CPI), which measures the prices of a basket of consumer goods and services, rose 2.5% year-on-year last month, up slightly from a 2.4% gain in May and ending four consecutive months of decline, data (link in Chinese) from the National Bureau of Statistics showed. The reading was slightly below the median estimate of 2.6% growth in a Caixin survey (link in Chinese) of economists.
Food prices exerted a big impact on consumer inflation. The price of fresh vegetables rose 4.2% year-on-year in June, compared with an 8.5% drop the previous month. Pork prices, one of the key drivers of inflation over the past year, rose 81.6% in June, similar to their 81.7% rise the previous month.
The core CPI — which excludes more-volatile food and energy prices and may better reflect long-term inflation trends — rose 0.9% year-on-year last month, down from 1.1% growth in May.
The producer price index, which gauges changes in the prices of goods circulated among manufacturers and mining companies, fell 3% (link in Chinese) year-on-year last month, milder than a 3.7% drop in May and slightly lower than the median estimate of a 3.1% decline in the Caixin survey.
Contact reporter Guo Yingzhe (yingzheguo@caixin.com)
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