BEIJING (Reuters) – A quickening in China’s consumer inflation in August was mainly due to stronger rises in food prices, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday.
Yu Qiumei, a senior statistician at the National Bureau of Statistics, also said worsening factory price deflation in August was mainly caused by sharper drops in prices of oil exploration and processing, ferrous metal smelting and coal mining industries.
The August consumer price index (CPI) rose 2.0 percent from a year earlier. Analysts polled by Reuters had predicted a rise of 1.8 percent, compared with 1.6 percent in July.
The producer price index (PPI), which represents manufacturers’ selling prices, fell 5.9 percent from a year earlier, much worse than market expectations of a 5.5 percent decline and compared with a 5.4 percent drop in July.
(Reporting by China economics team; Editing by Kim Coghill)
