BEIJING: China's producer inflation accelerated to its fastest pace in nearly 4-1/2 years while consumer inflation cooled in October, data showed on Monday, reflecting persistent cost pressures from higher oil prices despite weak domestic demand.
Global oil prices remained elevated during much of October, raising costs for coal mining, oil and natural gas extraction processing, chemicals and other energy-intensive sectors, a key driver of producer-price inflation. Those upstream price pressures have yet to fully feed through to consumers amid soft demand conditions.
The producer price index climbed by 5.7% last month from a year earlier, compared with a 5.0% increase in September, beating economists' forecasts for a 5.3% gain in a Reuters poll, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.
The consumer price index rose by 0.7% year-on-year, after a 0.9% rise in September, to come in just below economists' expectations for a 0.8% increase. On a monthly basis, the CPI matched forecasts for an unchanged outcome after edging up 0.2% in September.
While the world's second-largest economy grew faster than expected in the third quarter, buoyed by resilient exports, weak household demand has continued to constrain consumer spending. Ongoing trade tensions and an increasingly uncertain global outlook are also clouding the outlook for exports.
External shocks are having a greater impact, while the imbalance between robust supply and weak domestic demand remains pronounced, said an official at China's state planner last month.
China's struggling stock market, where AI-related stocks have tumbled from lofty valuations on concerns about AI demand and export restrictions targeting China, could further weigh on consumer spending.
Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, eased to 0.8% in October from 1.0% in September, offering a gauge of underlying price pressures in the economy.
China's efforts to curb the yuan's rapid gains, which have squeezed exporters' margins even as shipments remain strong, alongside a series of measures to stabilise the capital market, have yet to translate into a meaningful recovery in consumer sentiment. - Reuters
