Citizens pick fruit at a supermarket in
Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui Province, Feb. 10, 2009. China's
consumer price index (CPI), a major gauge of inflation, went up 1.0
percent year-on-year in January this year, the National Bureau of
Statistics said on Tuesday. (Xinhua/Li Jian) Photo Gallery>>>
BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- China's consumer price
index (CPI), a major gauge of inflation, rose by 1 percent in January over the
same month last year, the National Bureau of Statistics announced Tuesday.
The rise was 0.2 percentage points lower than the
previous month.
In January, the producer price index (PPI), another
measure of inflation at the wholesale level, dropped 3.3 percent. The decline
was 2.2 percentage points above the December level.
Tighter money supply and quickly falling demand
helped ease inflationary pressure, said Li Huiyong, chief macro-economic analyst
with brokerage firm Shenyin-Wanguo.
Inflation was a major concern in China at the
beginning of 2008,but as monetary policy tightened at the end of 2007, the CPI
started to slow last May after peaking at 8.7 percent in February. The inflation
index fell to 1.2 percent in December, the slowest since July 2006.
The PPI dropped 1.1 percent in December after rising
2 percent in November, and hit a 12-year-high of 10.1 percent in August.
"Given a time-lag effect, January CPI and PPI data
reflect the economic slowdown last year," said Zuo Xiaolei, chief economist with
Galaxy Securities.
In January, the CPI was up 0.9 percent from the
December level, with food prices up 3.3 percent on the previous month.
Zuo estimated the indices would continue downward for
the first quarter of this year, increasing deflationary pressure. She also
predicted low inflationary pressure this year.
Zhuang Jian, senior economist with the Asian
Development Bank's China resident mission, agreed the deflationary pressure
would be short-term, with the deceleration of the CPI continuing into March.
However, Zhang Liqun, a researcher with the
Development Research Center of the State Council, said deflationary pressure had
stopped in China as the month-on-month price changes indicated the economy had
bottomed out.
Zhang predicted China's annual economic growth would
speed up, but commodity prices would be unlikely return to the levels of the
first half of last year, when there was excess liquidity and heavy international
speculation on futures.
According to the statistical bureau, January saw the
CPI rise 0.7 percent in urban areas and up 1.5 percent in rural areas.
Food prices, which account for around a third of the
CPI, went up 4.2 percent, while non-food prices were down 0.6 percent.
Meat and related products were priced 2.8 percent
lower, fresh vegetables 19.6 percent higher, and eggs, 1.3 percent higher.
In terms of PPI, prices of production materials were
down 4.4 percent from a year ago, but living materials prices up 0.1 percent.
Crude oil prices at the factory gate slumped 49.9
percent, with prices of diesel down 4.8 percent and those of gasoline and
kerosene up 2.1 percent and 3.1 percent respectively.
But prices of mined coal went up 22.7 percent, and
raw coal prices up 12.3 percent.
Zhuang Jian said Chinese manufacturers had exhausted
their excess inventories, and they would purchase more equipment in coming
months to expand production with the government economic stimulus package. With
foreseeable stronger demand, the CPI would likely pick up at the end of March or
the beginning of April.
He said it was not imperative for the central bank to
lower interest rates again as money supply and credit extension had already
accelerated.
Zuo Xiaolei said if government macro control policies
were implemented properly, China would avoid hyper deflation this year.
BEIJING, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- Chinese economy is forecast to
grow by more than 9 percent next year, according to an annual blue paper
released by the Chinese Academy of Social Science on Tuesday.
Despite the huge uncertainty in 2009, China could still
achieve a 9-percent growth as long as it unveils timely and suitable
macro-economic control measures to boost domestic demand, said the blue paper.
Full story
BEIJING, Dec. 3 -- China's
top economic policy makers will meet next week to decide how to secure growth of
at least 8 percent, outpacing the World Bank's more pessimistic forecast,
government officials said Tuesday.
The annual Central Economic Work Conference, scheduled for
Monday through Wednesday, will tackle ways to implement the recently adopted
"expansive" fiscal policy and "moderately easy" monetary policy, officials
said. Full story
BEIJING, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) --
The World Bank on Tuesday cut its 2009 forecast for China's economic growth to
7.5 percent, from 9.2percent previously, in a report released here.
With the financial crisis spreading globally, the impact
on China is expected to intensify amid a global fund squeeze and a slowdown in
export growth in 2009, the World Bank said in its China Quarterly Update.
Full story
BEIJING, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan has called for more
concrete measures to tap China's domestic consumption potential to sustain
economic growth.
External demand for Chinese goods has fallen markedly amid
the global financial crisis, while domestic consumption power also fell, Wang
told recent meetings on foreign and domestic trade. Full story
BEIJING, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- A senior
Chinese planning official told reporters here on Friday that the new 4 trillion
yuan (586 billion U.S. dollars) economic stimulus package includes 1.18 trillion
yuan from the central government through 2010.
Mu Hong, vice director of the National Development and
Reform Commission (NDRC), said the agency would add 100 billion yuan of new
investment during the fourth quarter. Full story
BEIJING, Nov. 28
(Xinhua) -- The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central
Committee convened a meeting here on Friday, analyzing and studying the economic
work of next year and setting out major tasks.
The meeting said that this year has been eventful and the
country has risen to many daunting challenges, including the global financial
crisis and domestic natural disasters. The economy has maintained a stable and
relatively fast growth and society has been stable, which are hard-won
achievements, it said. Full story
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