China’s consumer inflation moderated in February to its lowest level in a year, as both food and nonfood prices eased, official data showed Thursday.
The consumer-price index rose 1.0% from a year earlier in February, down from the 2.1% increase in January, said the National Bureau of Statistics. The result undershot the 1.7% increase anticipated by economists polled by The Wall Street Journal.
Food prices rose 2.6% from a year earlier in February, slowing from January’s 6.2% increase, as growth in pork prices decelerated to 3.9%, down sharply from the 11.8% increase in January.
Nonfood prices rose 0.6% from a year earlier, down from the 1.2% increase in January.
CPI fell 0.5% in February from January, the statistics bureau said, compared with January’s 0.8% month-over-month increase.
China’s core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.6% from a year earlier, compared with January’s 1.0% increase.
Meanwhile, the producer-price index fell deeper into deflation in February by dropping 1.4% from a year earlier, compared with January’s 0.8% decline, the statistics bureau said. The surveyed economists had expected a 1.2% fall for PPI.
On a monthly basis, PPI was unchanged in February, compared with January’s 0.4% drop.
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