SHANGHAI, Nov 11 - The National Bureau of Statistics released on November 10 the CPI reading for October. Owing to abnormal weather, the contradiction between supply and demand of some goods as well as rising costs and other factors, the national consumer price index (CPI) rose 1.5% year-on-year, an increase of 0.8 percentage point over the previous month. Industry participants believe that the CPI ushered in a moderate upward trend, with no significant increase expected.
After several consecutive months of downside movement, the CPI growth widened in October, both on a month-on-month and year-on-year basis.
On a MoM basis, the fresh vegetable price increase contributed to CPI growth by nearly fifty percent. Dong Lijuan, senior statistician of the Urban Division of the National Bureau of Statistics, said that MoM growth of food prices in October reversed to the upside trend, mainly due to the palpable price increase of fresh vegetables. Meanwhile, due to the rainfall, summer and autumn crop change, local resurgence of COVID, and increasing production and transportation costs, etc., fresh vegetable prices rose 16.6% in the month, lifting the CPI by about 0.34 percentage point, accounting for nearly fifty percent of the total increase. From a year-on-year perspective, fresh vegetable price increase raised the CPI by about 0.33 percentage point.
In addition to the prices of fresh vegetables, energy price hike became an important factor in the expansion of CPI in October. According to analysis, non-food prices rose 0.4% in October from the previous month, slightly above the seasonal level, mainly due to higher prices for energy resources, which drove up transport fuel prices as well as residential water and electricity fuel prices by 4.7% and 2%, respectively. "The CPI MoM growth went up, fuelling CPI to expand by 1.5% year-on-year, coupled with a low baseline in 2020."
Looking ahead, it is expected that CPI in November may continue to rise slightly year-on-year. On the one hand, pork prices bottomed out and the negative influence on CPI began to weaken; on the other hand, CPI growth fell to -0.5% year-on-year in November last year, further lowering the baseline.
