China’s consumer inflation remained high in February amid the coronavirus outbreak, with official price figures also confirming the difficulties faced by manufacturers, reported the South China Morning Post.
The consumer price index (CPI) rose 5.2% from a year earlier, down from a 5.4% gain in January, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed.
The producer price index (PPI), reflecting the prices that factories charge wholesalers for their products, dropped 0.3% year-on-year in February, a decline on the 0.1% rise in January. The result was below expectations in a Bloomberg survey for contraction of just 0.3%.
“The coronavirus outbreak is putting downward pressure on inflation,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics. “While supply chain disruptions have kept food prices high, weaker demand has weighed on the price of other goods and services.”