China’s headline inflation was flat in September, weighed by a steep drop in pork and vegetable prices as well as high base effects. The consumer price index was flat on year, compared with a 0.1% rise in August, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Friday. The reading was below the 0.2% increase tipped by economists in a Wall Street Journal poll.
Food prices fell 3.2% on year in September, compared with a 1.7% decline in August. The statistics bureau said the food price and headline CPI readings were dwarfed by high bases a year earlier. Prices of pork and fresh vegetables widened their falls, dropping 22.0% and 6.4% on year respectively in September, accounting for nearly 90% of the decline in overall food prices, the bureau said. Non-food prices rose 0.7% from a year earlier in September, compared with a 0.5% increase in August. China’s core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.8% on year in September, staying at the same level for a third month. On a monthly basis, China’s CPI increased 0.2% in September, compared with August’s 0.3% growth. Meanwhile, producer prices stayed in deflation but declined at a slower pace. China’s producer price index, which gauges the …
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