Core CPI Year-on-Year Growth Expands for Fourth Consecutive Month

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China's consumer market maintained overall stability in August. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) remained flat month-on-month and declined 0.4% year-on-year. As policies to expand domestic demand and boost consumption continued to take effect, core CPI excluding food and energy prices rose 0.9% year-on-year, with growth expanding for the fourth consecutive month. The Producer Price Index (PPI) shifted from a 0.2% month-on-month decline last month to flat.

Dong Lijuan, Chief Statistician of the Urban Department at the National Bureau of Statistics, analyzed that the CPI's shift from flat to declining year-on-year was mainly due to higher comparison base from the same period last year combined with food price increases below seasonal levels this month. By category, food prices were primarily responsible. Food prices rose 0.5% month-on-month in August, with the increase about 1.1 percentage points below seasonal levels.

PPI ended eight consecutive months of month-on-month decline. The main characteristics of this month's PPI month-on-month changes were: first, improved supply-demand relationships caused prices in some energy and raw material industries to shift from decline to growth month-on-month; second, external input factors led to month-on-month price declines in domestic petroleum and some non-ferrous metal industries. PPI fell 2.9% year-on-year, with the decline narrowing by 0.7 percentage points from the previous month, marking the first narrowing since March this year.