Posted on 17 Feb 2022
For the first month of 2022, China's Consumer Price Index (CPI) went up 0.9% on year, or up 0.4% on month, while its Producer Price Index (PPI) surged 9.1% on year albeit a 0.2% on-month drop, with both showing slower on-year growths than in December, according to the data released by the country's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on February 16.
Among the components for the CPI, food prices fell 3.8% on year, in which vegetable prices went down 4.1% on year and pork prices slumped 41.6% on year amid higher base prices in January 2021 and supply abundance, while fresh fruit prices went up 9.9% and seafood prices gained 8.8% on year respectively.
All these prices, however, gained on month by single digits ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday in the first week of February, though pork price still fell 2.5% on month, Dong Lijuan, senior statistician of NBS, highlighted in an analysis report on the same day.
China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has expressed the concern on the tumbling pork prices recently, considering reducing supplies to the market via collecting some under the national reserves, as reported.
In January, global energy price rises showed the ripple impact on China's series of energy products too, as the country's prices of gasoline and diesel fuel, for example, gained 20.7% and 22.7% on year respectively, and they both went up on month too by 2.2% and 2.4% respectively, the NBS data showed.
Last month, though, industrial goods such as coal and steel prices ebbed on month, contributing to the overall lower PPI than December, though the comparison with a year ago still posted substantial gains for both, Mysteel Global noted from the NBS data.
In January, steelmaking and fabrication enterprises posted their prices down 1.9% on month but up 14.7% on year, and coal mining and washing plans posted their prices down 3.5% on month though the on-year gain still scored high at 51.3%, the official data showed.
Last month, China's oil and natural gas drilling companies saw their prices recover 2.6% on month or soar 38.2% on year, and the Chinese nonferrous smelting and fabrication plants posted their prices up 0.8% on month or grew 19.8% on year together with the global nonferrous metals price rises, according to the official data.
Source:Mysteel Global
