In July, Liaoning's industrial producer price index (PPI) for factory gate sales dropped 3.2% month-on-month, widening the decline by 2.4 percentage points from the previous month. On a year-on-year basis, prices rose 2.6%, a significant slowdown of 3.9 percentage points from the prior month's gain.

The province's industrial producer purchase price index fell 1.3% month-on-month, a slight acceleration in the decline by 0.6 percentage points. Compared to the same period last year, purchase prices increased 4.7%, with the annual growth rate easing by 0.9 percentage points.

For the first seven months of the year, factory gate prices recorded a cumulative increase of 1.1%, while purchase prices were up 1.0% overall.

Breakdown by Major Sectors: Production vs. Consumer Goods

In July, producer goods prices for factory gate sales rose 4.6% year-on-year, down 4.4 percentage points from the previous month's growth. Within this category, raw materials industries saw a 7.5% increase, mining and quarrying industries gained 5.6%, and processing industries advanced 1.5%.

Conversely, consumer goods prices for factory gate sales declined 5.5% year-on-year. This included a sharp 10.9% drop in durable consumer goods, a 1.1% fall in food products, a 0.7% decrease in general daily-use items, and a 0.6% decline in clothing.

In-Depth View: Nine Major Categories of Purchase Prices

In July, the year-on-year change in the nine major categories of raw material purchase prices showed a pattern of six increases and three decreases. The largest gains were recorded in non-ferrous metal materials and wires (up 16.8%), followed by chemical raw materials (up 10.1%), fuel and power (up 6.2%), and ferrous metal materials (up 3.7%). Wood and pulp rose 1.3%, while agricultural by-products edged up 1.1%.

On the downside, textile raw materials fell 0.2%, other industrial raw materials and semi-finished products decreased 0.9%, and building materials and non-metallic mineral products declined 1.6%.