Consumer Inflation Lessens In China Following Record High In February

After reaching its highest level in eight years in February, consumer inflation in China lessened last month. The country’s consumer price index increased 4.3 percent in March compared to the same time last year, the Financial Times reported, citing the National Bureau of Statistics of China.

Prices had increased 5.2 percent year on year in February, powered by increasing consumer goods prices. The bureau indicated that March’s lessened inflation was, for a large part, because of dropping food product prices. Pork prices, in one case, were reduced with the assistance of the release of strategic reserves.

A suspension on transport, as well as a supply chain shortage, moved the price of pork to more than 50 yuan a kilo, which is an atypically heightened level for the season. Also, the producer price index of China dropped 1.5 percent year on year, following a fall of 0.4 percent in February.

The inflation information from last month is the first of multiple signs that investors and economists will monitor for indications about where the second biggest economy in the world is headed. The National Bureau of Statistics will put forward its estimates for Q1 economic production, investment, consumption, and international trade in the week to come.

In recent times, the economic activity of China has provided some indications of recovery from the coronavirus crisis. Wuhan, in one case, took away a prohibition of travel entering and departing the city following a lockdown of nearly 80 days.

Economic damage in China was worse than forecast per a report in March, as factory production had encountered its quickest drop in three decades. The Index of Services Production in January and February fell 13 percent year on year, while total retail consumer goods sales fell to 5,213 billion yuan.

National Bureau of Statistics of China Spokesman Mao Shengyong said following the release of the data, “China’s containment of the epidemic is bearing fruit, but there is a challenge ahead in controlling the spread in other countries.”