China: Inflation drops to lowest level since September 2021 in January
Consumer prices increased 0.40% over the previous month in January, swinging from the 0.30% fall seen in December.
Consumer price inflation dropped to 0.9% in January below December’s 1.5%. January’s result represented the weakest inflation rate since September 2021. Meanwhile, the trend pointed up mildly, with annual average inflation coming in at 1.0% in January (December: 0.9%). Lastly, producer inflation fell to 9.1% in January, from the previous month’s 10.3%.
Consumer price inflation is forecast to average higher than its current level in 2022. In contrast, producer price inflation should ease this year, amid a high base of comparison and a stabilization of commodity prices.
Commenting on the Inflationarry outlook, Ting Lu, Jing Wang and Harrington Zhang, economists at Nomura, said:
“With a high base, contracting demand and Beijing’s efforts to tame runaway energy and raw materials prices, we expect PPI inflation to fall to 8.6% yoy in February. For CPI inflation, in view of weakening demand, lower food prices after the LNY holiday and the different timing of the LNY holiday, we expect a moderation to 0.7% yoy […] Taking into account the surge in global energy and raw materials prices over the past two months […], we revise our 2022 annual CPI and PPI inflation to 2.0% and 4.2%, respectively, from 2.4% and 3.5%.”