The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) will announce the consumer price index (CPI) for October today. Institutions predicted that the year-on-year growth of CPI in October may expand slightly, which will still stay around 1 percent. If the prediction comes true, the CPI will grow by lower than 2 percent for 9 consecutive months.
Year-on-year growth of CPI may pick up slightly in Oct.
Statistics showed that CPI rose by 1.6 percent year on year in September, down by 0.2 percentage points from August. It is widely predicted that the CPI growth, which is to be released soon, is likely to expand.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce, prices of edible agricultural products have hiked for four weeks consecutively in October. During October 23-29, average wholesale price of 30 kinds of vegetables was 4.09 yuan per kilogram, up by 1.2 percent from previous week, while that of meat saw ups and downs. Average wholesale price of pork and beef posted 21.33 yuan per kilogram and 50.86 yuan per kilogram, both presenting a decrease of 0.1 percent.
Lian Ping, chief economist from the Bank of Communications, predicted that food prices will pick up in October. Consumption in tourism, catering and entertainment during National Day holidays may boost non-food prices to rise. In addition, carryover effect also moved up slightly. Therefore, the CPI may increase by 1.7-1.9 percent year on year in October with 1.8 percent as a median. The growth will be a little higher than that in September.
The average value of CPI growth predicted by 29 institutions was 1.8 percent in October and the lowest value was 1.7 percent, according to www.chinanews.com. If the prediction comes true, the CPI will grow by lower than 2 percent for 9 consecutive months.
Commodity price won’t see significant rise in Q4
CPI edged up by 1.5 percent year on year in the first three quarters, 0.5 percentage points slower than that at the same period of last year. How’s the trend of commodity price in the fourth quarter?
Lian viewed that as carryover effect was quite low in the fourth quarter, price of commodities won’t rise a lot in the fourth quarter. He predicted that the CPI will witness an increase of about 1.5 percent for the whole year. The pressure of inflation is slight.
Zhao Xijun, deputy dean of the School of Finance, Renmin University of China, said that due to weather getting cold and seasonal factor, prices of some agricultural products will pick up. But on the whole, total demand is still steady and commodity price will maintain stable.
NBS spokesman Xing Zhihong said at a press conference for the first three quarters held in October that the commodity price is quite stable currently. The growth of commodity price is very low this year when compared with that over last several years as food prices declined from a year earlier and foods such as vegetables and pork enjoyed sufficient supplies.
Translated by Vanessa Chen
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