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BEIJING--China's consumer inflation hit its highest level in more than eight years in January due to impact from the coronavirus outbreak and the Lunar New Year, official data showed.
The consumer price index climbed 5.4% in January from a year earlier, the highest reading since October 2011, when the index grew 5.5%, the National Bureau of Statistics said Monday. The key inflation gauge was higher than December's 4.5% rise and above a median forecast of a 4.9% increase by economists in a Wall Street Journal poll.
Food prices in January grew 20.6% from a year earlier, accelerating from a 17.4% increase in December. Pork prices surged 116% on year in January, extending from a 97% increase in December. Pork prices alone boosted headline CPI by 2.76 percentage points in January. Non-food prices rose 1.6% in January from a year earlier, picking up from a 1.3% increase in December.
In Hubei province, which has been hit hardest by the coronavirus outbreak, consumer inflation was slightly higher than the national average in January at 5.5%, Dong Lijuan, an analyst with the statistics bureau, said in a statement.
On a month-to-month basis nationwide, CPI rose 1.4% from December. The index was unchanged in December from a month earlier. China pork prices rose 8.5% in January from a month earlier. In December, pork prices dropped 5.6% on month.
Meanwhile, China's industrial prices left deflation territory in January, official data showed.
The producer price index, a gauge of factory gate prices, edged up 0.1% on year in January, compared with a 0.5% decline in December and rising for the first time in seven months. Economists had expected the index to stay flat in January from a year earlier. On month, the PPI was unchanged in January from a year earlier, the same as December.
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