Consumer inflation in China showed the fastest increase in the last two years due to the rise in food prices but remained below market expectations.
Consumer prices in China rose at the fastest pace in more than two years as pork prices rose, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Friday.
In September, consumer prices increased by 2.8 percent compared to the same month of the previous year. Analysts had predicted that the increase, which was 2.5 percent in the previous month, would increase to 2.9 percent.
According to Wind Information, this was the fastest pace since the 3.3 percent annualized increase in April 2020. According to Wind data, most of the gains came from sustained increases in pork prices, which rose 36 percent a year earlier for the biggest increase since August 2020. Pork, a staple food in China, has a significant weight in the country’s official consumer price index.
However, other indicators pointed to subdued consumer demand.
Excluding food and energy, the core CPI rose just 0.6 percent from a year ago — the slowest pace since March 2021, according to Wind.
