China's producer prices up steeply in January
Tuesday, 19 February 2008
BEIJING, Feb 18 (AFP): China's producer or wholesale prices rose in January at the fastest rate in over three years, the government said today, suggesting taming inflation remained a challenge.
The producer price index gained 6.1 per cent last month from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said. It compared with an increase of 5.4 per cent in December and a rise of 3.1 per cent for all of 2007.
"(It) reflects a broad-based uptick in a range of commodity and raw material costs, highlighting upward pipeline inflationary pressure in China," said JP Morgan in a research note.
JP Morgan added the January figure was the highest year-on- year monthly rise since December 2004.
Producer prices are often seen as harbingers of future trends in consumer prices, which more directly affect China's 1.3 billion consumers.
Prices of crude oil rose 29.9 per cent in January, while the prices of steel products were up by as much as 28.6 per cent, according to the statistics bureau.
The release of the January producer prices came one day before China was scheduled to release the benchmark consumer price index, or CPI, for January.
JP Morgan pointed out that producer prices for food picked up in January, rising 10.4 per cent in January after easing modestly to 8.8 per cent in December.
The producer price index gained 6.1 per cent last month from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said. It compared with an increase of 5.4 per cent in December and a rise of 3.1 per cent for all of 2007.
"(It) reflects a broad-based uptick in a range of commodity and raw material costs, highlighting upward pipeline inflationary pressure in China," said JP Morgan in a research note.
JP Morgan added the January figure was the highest year-on- year monthly rise since December 2004.
Producer prices are often seen as harbingers of future trends in consumer prices, which more directly affect China's 1.3 billion consumers.
Prices of crude oil rose 29.9 per cent in January, while the prices of steel products were up by as much as 28.6 per cent, according to the statistics bureau.
The release of the January producer prices came one day before China was scheduled to release the benchmark consumer price index, or CPI, for January.
JP Morgan pointed out that producer prices for food picked up in January, rising 10.4 per cent in January after easing modestly to 8.8 per cent in December.