China’s producer prices hit four-year high

China’s producer price index hit a more than four-year high in October as the global energy shock drove up costs for factories in the country, even as consumer price inflation softened on weak domestic demand.

The PPI last month gained 5.7% year-on-year compared with 5% a month earlier and the median estimate of a poll of analysts by Bloomberg of 5.3%.

The index rose at the fastest pace since June 2022, as this year’s oil shock from the US-Iran war hit fossil fuel-related sectors, such as petroleum and gas, chemicals and downstream commodity businesses.

The consumer price index, meanwhile, rose 0.7% year on year in October, lower than the 0.9% reported a month earlier and below analysts’ median forecast of 0.8%, official figures showed on Monday.

National Bureau of Statistics statistician Dong Lijuan said nine sectors accounted for most of the gains in the producer price index, led by energy-related, chemicals and electronics industries.

Among them, oil, coal and other fuel processing prices rose 35% and chemical raw materials costs were up nearly 30%, while gas production and supply increased by 7.9%. Computer, communication and other electronic equipment manufacturing rose 5.9%.

“Imported and seasonal factors influenced price increases in major energy-related industries,” the NBS said.

China suffered more than three years of deflationary pressures until the outbreak of war in Iran, which drove its producer and consumer price indices back into positive growth territory.

But economists say underlying deflationary pressure remains strong as China’s domestic economy has struggled to regain momentum because of a drawn-out property slowdown that has depressed household sentiment.

Domestically, companies are having difficulty passing on the rise in factory-gate prices from higher energy and commodity prices to customers and consumers, putting further pressure on their margins, analysts say.

Read More

Pakistani astronaut to join China space station's Shenzhou-24 mission

But deflationary pressures and a relatively weak currency have supercharged exports, leaving policymakers who are reluctant to launch a large-scale fiscal stimulus increasingly dependent on external demand for growth.

Underlining weak domestic sentiment, the official data showed that much of the small gain in consumer prices was driven by petrol, which rose 22.4% during October against a year earlier.

Petrol prices accounted for about 0.63 percentage points of the total increase in consumer prices, the NBS said.