Customers select goods at a supermarket in Beijing, on Aug 19, 2022. (PHOTO / VCG)
BEIJING – China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 2.5 percent year on year in August, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday.
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On a monthly basis, August's CPI remained stable, reversing the 0.5-percent rise in July to edge down 0.1 percent, thanks to efforts to contain COVID-19 and extreme weather impacts, as well as efforts to ensure sufficient supply and stable prices, noted Dong Lijuan, a senior statistician with the NBS.
Food prices went up 0.5 percent month on month, which raised the monthly consumer inflation by about 0.1 percentage points.
Due to price fluctuations of bulk commodities, including international crude oil and non-ferrous metals, and weak domestic demand, the prices of industrial products fell on the whole last month, said senior NBS statistician Dong Lijuan
Specifically, the price of pork, a staple meat in China, inched up 0.4 percent in August, contracting 25.2 percentage points over the previous month, as hog slaughter activities returned to normal and consumer demand saw a seasonal weakening, Dong said.
Non-food prices rose 1.7 percent year on year, lifting the yearly consumer inflation by about 1.38 percentage points.
The prices of gasoline and diesel reported year-on-year growths of 20.2 percent and 21.9 percent, respectively.
The core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, gained 0.8 percent year on year in August, staying flat from the growth pace logged in July.
Factory-gate prices up 2.3%
Meanwhile, China's producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, went up 2.3 percent year on year in August, the NBS said.
The figure moderated from the 4.2 percent year-on-year increase registered in July. On a monthly basis, China's PPI fell 1.2 percent in August.
Due to price fluctuations of bulk commodities, including international crude oil and non-ferrous metals, and weak domestic demand, the prices of industrial products as a whole fell last month, Dong said.
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The coal mining and washing industry saw its PPI fall 4.3 percent month on month in August, while the PPI of the oil and gas extraction industry went down 7.3 percent month on month in August.
Affected by high temperatures, the PPI of the electricity and heat production and supply industry rose 0.3 percent in August compared with a decline of 1.1 percent in July.
The carry-over effect of last year's price movements contributed about 2.5 percentage points to the year-on-year PPI growth in August, according to the NBS.