Thursday, March 9, 2023 – 6:34 PM
BEIJING, 09 February / WAM / Consumer inflation rates slowed down in China in February, with prices of food and consumer goods declining from what they were in January. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics on Thursday showed that the consumer price index, the main gauge of inflation in the country, rose 1% year on year. On a monthly basis, the CPI for February decreased by 0.5 percent compared to January. Dong Lijuan, chief statistician with the National Bureau of Statistics, said the decline was due to factors such as lower consumer demand after the Spring Festival and adequate market supply.
Food prices fell by 2 percent. The core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.6 percent from a year earlier, 0.4 percentage points lower than in January. The National Bureau of Statistics also said Thursday that the producer price index, which measures the costs of goods at the factory gate, fell 1.4 percent year on year in February. The PPI decline was 0.6 percentage points higher than the 0.8 percent contraction recorded in January. According to the data, China’s producer price index remained flat in February on a monthly basis.
Zakaria Mohieldin