China’s January factory gate prices fell more than economists expected, suggesting that flashes of domestic demand that had stoked consumer prices after the zero-COVID policy ended are not yet strong enough to rekindle upstream sectors, reports Reuters. The producer price index (PPI) was down 0.8% on a year earlier, extending the 0.7% drop the prior month and faster than the 0.5% fall tipped in a Reuters poll, even though manufacturing activity returned to growth in January.
The consumer price index (CPI) in January was 2.1% higher than a year earlier, up on the 1.8% annual gain seen in December, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Friday, but just shy of the 2.2% increase economists had predicted in a Reuters poll.
CPI was boosted by a seasonal surge in spending over the Lunar New Year festival, with airfares, movie tickets, and travel prices up 20.3%, 10.7% and 9.3% respectively, according to NBS data.