BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s consumer inflation hit a five-month low in November, while producer price deflation persisted, even as the economy received support from recent stimulus efforts.
The world’s second-largest economy is bracing for likely fresh tariffs from a second Donald Trump White House and still dealing with other headwinds, suggesting more policy stimulus will be needed to shore up fragile growth.
The consumer price index rose 0.2% last month from a year earlier, cooling from a 0.3% increase in October, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Monday. It was also below a 0.5% rise forecast in a Reuters poll of economists.
CPI fell 0.6% month-on-month, compared with a 0.3% fall in October and a forecast 0.4% decline.
Core inflation, excluding volatile food and fuel prices, edged up to 0.3% last month from 0.2% in October.
While household spending has beaten forecasts in recent months, buoyed by subsidised trade-ins of autos and home appliances, that hasn’t been enough to help China turn its economy around.
Instead of directly injecting money into the economy, Beijing unveiled a 10 trillion yuan ($1.37 trillion) debt package in November to ease local government financing strains.
Chinese government advisers are calling for an economic growth target of around 5.0% for 2025, pushing for stronger fiscal stimulus to mitigate the impact of expected U.S. tariff hikes on the country’s exports, Reuters reported.
The producer price index fell 2.5% year-on-year in November, slowing from a 2.9% drop in October and above the estimated 2.8% fall.
($1 = 7.2775 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Qiaoyi Li and Ryan Woo; Editing by Sam Holmes)
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