China’s consumer inflation eased to its lowest level in more than a year in March, as prices for both food and non-food products retreated.
The consumer-price index rose 0.7% on year in March compared with February’s 1.0% increase, the National Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday.
That marked the lowest reading since September 2021 and undershot the 0.9% increase anticipated by economists polled by The Wall Street Journal.
Food prices rose 2.4% on year in March, compared with February’s 2.6% rise. Pork prices accelerated to a 9.6% year-on-year increase, up from the 3.9% growth recorded in February. Vegetable prices fell 11.1% on year in March, down further from February’s 3.8% decline.
Non-food prices rose 0.3% on year versus a 0.6% increase in March.
The CPI fell 0.3% in March from February, narrowing from a 0.5% month-on-month decline in February, the statistics bureau said.
Meanwhile the producer-price index slid deeper into deflation, falling 2.5% compared with a 1.4% decline in the same period a year earlier, it said.
The fall was in line with the 2.5% drop expected by the economists in the WSJ poll.
On a monthly basis, PPI stayed flat in March.
