CPI rises 0.2% in December, up 2.5% for 2020: NBS

China’s consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose by 0.2 percent in December year-on-year, compared with November’s 0.5-percent drop, and the full-year 2020 rise was 2.5 percent, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday.

Consumer demand continued to grow in December as a result of epidemic prevention and control measures and economic growth. At the same time, affected by turbulent weather and rising costs, the CPI shifted from a decline to a rise, said NBS senior statistician Dong Lijuan.

The rebound of the economy and stronger consumption pushed the CPI upward at the end of the year. In particular, the Double 12 online shopping festival and a growing need to spend at the end of the year pushed consumer prices higher, analysts said.

On the monthly basis, CPI moved from a 0.6 percent decline to an increase of 0.7 percent in December. Among the main drivers, food prices moved from a 2.4-percent drop in November to an increase of 2.8 percent, which contributed about 0.62 percentage points to the CPI, said Dong.

The rise in the CPI was mainly driven by higher pork prices, Nomura said in a report it sent to the Global Times on Monday. “Seasonally stronger pork demand toward year-end (especially amid the services sector recovery), tighter regulations for hog shipments across different regions in China, and limited pork imports due to the worsening COVID-19 situation in overseas economies may have jointly contributed to sequentially higher pork prices in December from November,” read the report.

Pork prices rose 6.5 percent, compared with a 6.5-percent drop in November, driving the CPI up by 0.28 percentage points, according to the NBS.

Prices for vegetables and fruit rose 6.5 percent year-on-year in December, while beef and mutton prices rose 4.6 percent.