CPI and PPI growth edges down as pork, commodity prices fall: NBS

China’s inflation gauge consumer price index (CPI) rose 1.1 percent in June, while the factory gate prices or PPI surged 8.8 percent, both edging down compared with the growth in May, according to official data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Friday.

The country’s CPI growth also signaled a temporary end to the trend of inflation rise in China, as CPI growth has been accelerating for four consecutive months since January. In May and April, the CPI rose 1.3 percent and 0.9 percent consecutively. On a monthly basis, the CPI edged down by 0.4 percentage points in June.

Dong Lijuan, a senior statistician with the NBS, attributed the main source of CPI slowdown to the fall of food prices, particularly pork. According to the NBS data, the price of pork slumped by 36.5 percent in June, widening 12.7 percentage points compared with the previous month.

Price factor contributed about 0.31 percentage points to CPI’s grow slowdown, Dong said.

In comparison, China’s producer price index (PPI) edged down by a slight 0.2 percentage points compared with May, which is in line with market expectations.

The growth fallback is connected to the fall of price growth in a number of industries including chemical materials, oil and natural gas exploration as well as ferrous metal smelting.

Tian Yun, vice director of the Beijing Economic Operation Association, said that China’s inflation trend would likely to reach its peak by the end of the second quarter, a turn which has already showed signs including the PPI growth turns and the repeated monthly CPI fallback.

“For one thing, the supply shortage, once triggerd by economic shutdowns amid the coronavirus, has started to disappear with the disease under control. For another thing, China’s consumption rebound is not as robust as we thought, and domestic demands are relatively weak,” he told the Global Times.