China’s consumer prices edged higher in March against a year earlier, missing analysts’ forecasts and underlining the challenges for the world’s second-largest economy as it tries to boost domestic demand, reports the Financial Times. China’s leader Xi Jinping is trying to move the economy away from its debt-stricken real estate sector towards high-end manufacturing in a delicate transition that is leading to tensions with the US and Europe.
The country’s consumer price index was 0.1% higher year on year in March, according to official statistics released on Thursday, lower than 0.7% in February and below the 0.4% forecast by a Reuters poll of analysts.
The soft CPI number comes as China’s economy has shown mixed signs of recovery in the first quarter of the year, with factory activity expanding for the first time in six months in March.