BEIJING, May 11 (Xinhua) -- China's consumer price
index (CPI), the main gauge of inflation, fell 1.5 percent year on year in
April, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Monday.
It was the third decline in a row since February,
when the CPI dropped 1.6 percent, which in turn was the first fall since October
2002.
The result was in line with market expectations and
analyst forecasts.
People queue at a supermarket in
Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province April 16, 2009. (Xinhua/Li
Ziheng) Photo
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Food prices, which comprise one-third of the CPI,
dropped 1.3 percent, dragged down by a 28.6-percent decline in pork prices as
demand plummeted amid a global flu outbreak thought to be connected with pigs.
Non-food prices fell 1.5 percent.
The index was down 0.2 percent from a month earlier, and the figure for January-April fell 0.8 percent from the same period last year.
Lian Ping, chief economist with the Bank of
Communications, said the weakening reflected the high base of comparison, since
the CPI soared by 8.5 percent last April. The consecutive declines did not
presage deflation, and the figure was expected to rise starting at mid-year.
China's producer price index (PPI), a major measure
of inflation at the wholesale level, fell 6.6 percent in April, the fourth
monthly decline in a row.
Li Huiyong, analyst with the Shenyin & Wanguo
Securities said falling iron and steel prices pushed the PPI down.
However, Lian said the figure was expected to rise
from May forward, at least in month-on-month terms, as global commodity prices
had begun rising again amid signs of economic recovery.
Last month, domestic prices of copper, aluminum and
zinc rose by 10 percent to 20 percent on average. Oil product prices also edged
up.
The consecutive falls in the CPI and PPI aroused
concerns about deflation in the world's third-largest economy. But analysts said
that given the inflationary nature of the government stimulus package and the
massive expansion of bank credit in the first quarter, deflation was unlikely.
The country pumped 4.58 trillion yuan (670 billion
U.S. dollars) of new loans into the economy in the first quarter to stimulate
growth.
Lending in the early months of 2009 has already
neared the 5 trillion yuan of new loans targeted for the whole year. In March
alone, new loans increased by a record 1.89 trillion yuan.
The People's Bank of China (PBOC, the central bank)
said in its quarterly monetary policy report on May 5 that China would stick to
its moderately easy monetary policy and ensure "ample" liquidity at banks.
The State Information Center, a government think
tank, predicted in a report released on May 4 that the CPI would drop 1.3
percent in the second quarter.
One hundred economists polled by the China Economic
Monitoring & Analysis Center under the NBS at the end of March expected the
figure for the whole year would range between 0 to 0.2 percent.
Deflation was unlikely, the survey found, considering
the ample bank liquidity and the moderating inflation comparison base in the
latter half of 2008.
Premier Wen Jiabao told the annual national
legislative meeting in the early March that the inflation target for this year
would be about 4 percent.
Xu lianzhong, official with the National Development
and Reform Commission, the top planning agency, told Xinhua that the CPI would
likely bottom out in the second quarter, so the possibility of further interest
rate cuts could not be ruled out.
BEIJING, May 11 (Xinhua) -- China's producer price index
(PPI), a major measure of inflation at the wholesale level, fell 6.6 percent in
April year on year, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday. Full story
BEIJING, May 5 (Xinhua) -- China's power generation is
likely to have fallen 4 percent year on year in April, indicating an economic
recovery is still some way off, Tuesday's China Daily reported.
The estimated figure would signal a larger decline
than that in March, when power output fell 0.7 percent to 286.7 billion KWh, Xue
Jing, director of the statistics and information department under the China
Electricity Council told the paper. Full story
BEIJING, May 1 (Xinhua) -- The Purchasing Managers' Index
(PMI)of China's manufacturing sector rose for a fifth straight month in April to
53.5, up 1.1 points from a month earlier, the China Federation of Logistics and
Purchasing (CFLP) said Friday.
It was the second consecutive month the PMI rebounded
above 50 since July 2008, when the index fell to 48.4 percent.
A reading of above 50 suggests expansion, while one
below 50 indicates contraction. Full story
BEIJING, April 29 (Xinhua) -- China's energy intensity
dropped 2.89 percent in the first quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics
(NBS) reported Tuesday.
The decrease compared with 2.62 percent a year
earlier. Full story
BEIJING, April 25 (Xinhua) -- Profits of companies
controlled by China's central government continued to fall in the first quarter
but at a slower pace, as the stimulus package showed positive effects on their
performance, the State-owned enterprise (SOE) watchdog said Friday.
The 138 SOEs directly controlled by the central
government, generated a profit of 119.49 billion yuan (17.57 billion U.S.
dollars) through January-March, down 41.8 percent year on year. The decline was
11.1 percentage points slower than the January-February figure, according to the
State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC). Full story
