China's CPI down 0.5% in Nov, an 11-year low

Customers buy foods in a supermarket in Mujie village, Guizhou province, on Nov 25, 2020. [Photo/Xinhua]

China's consumer price index (CPI) posted the first year-on-year drop in 11 years last month, as pork prices declined while nonfood prices remained subdued, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday.

CPI, the main gauge of inflation, dropped by 0.5 percent year-on-year in November, compared with 0.5 percent growth in October and marking the first decline since October 2009 when the index slid by 0.5 percent, according to the NBS.

Dong Lijuan, a NBS statistician, attributed the decline in consumer prices mainly to dropping food prices. Pork prices, in particular, slumped by 12.5 percent year-on-year from a high comparison base last year as pork production continued to recover.

Nonfood prices edged down by 0.1 percent year-on-year in November, the bureau said, with the prices for transportation, especially petrol and diesel oil, dropping while those for healthcare and education rising. Nonfood prices were unchanged from a year earlier in October.

The core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.5 percent year-on-year last month, the fifth consecutive month for the index to register the same growth, bureau said.

Meanwhile, the country's producer price index, which gauges factory gate prices, fell by 1.5 percent on a yearly basis in November, narrowing from a 2.1 percent decline in October.

Industrial production resumed steadily and market demand continued to pick up, propping up prices of industrial goods, Dong said.