Debate rife over inflation's implications
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Amid growing consumer complaints from a new round of prices hikes, debate is rife over how fast the current level of inflation is growing and what implications it will have on the world's second-largest economy.
Critics blamed the excessive printing of banknotes and loose monetary policy that China's central bank has adopted since the global financial crisis for leading to the current round of inflation.
Wu Xiaoling, the deputy director of the Financial and Economic Committee of the National People's Congress, said in an interview with China Economic Weekly that China's central bank had over-issued the currency in the past few years, especially in 2009 when global financial turmoil slowed Beijing's economy.
In 2000, the disparity between the money supply and economic output was at 4.6 trillion yuan ($669 billion) while the GDP stood at 8.9 trillion yuan and money supply was 13.5 trillion yuan, ac-cording to People's Daily. But the gap widened to 42.7 trillion yuan by September of this year when 69.6 trillion yuan was issued and the GDP was 26.9 trillion yuan.
An overbalanced currency in the market has fueled commodities prices, especially in agricultural and sideline products, said Xie Guozhong, an independent economist.
China's Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 3.6 percent to a 23-month high in September and is expected to have edged higher in October.
Meanwhile, Yao Jingyuan, chief economist at the National Statistics Bureau (NBS), said commodities prices in China will remain stable, though the CPI figure in October might be higher than that of September, ruling out the possibility of higher inflation.
"While two hyperinflations China experienced over the past three decades stood at 18.8 percent in 1988 and 24.1 percent in 1994, China's average CPI in 2010 will not exceed 3.5 percent, year-on-year," Yao said Tuesday.
Yuan Gangming, a scholar with the Center for China in the World Economy at Tsinghua University, told the Global Times that the current inflation rate is still acceptable, given the huge population the country has.
However, food prices have increased sharply since November.
In Nanjing, the price of rice increased nearly 50 percent, year-on-year, to almost 6 yuan per kilogram, and the price of edible oil rose about 10 percent in November to 14 yuan per liter, the Yangtse Evening Post reported.
Yang Qiuping, a retired accountant in Yingkou, northeastern Liaoning Province, whose monthly pension is about 1,000 yuan ($149), claimed that prices for vegetables tripled compared with the same period last year.
"Price hikes do not match with increases in workers' salaries. Bank savings look less attractive now given the current low interest rate and high inflation rate. What's more, we cannot afford any financial investment," she said.
According to a survey conducted by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, about 25 percent of workers in the country have not received a pay raise in more than five years.
"Inflation has become a grave concern to the public, especially to the ordinary working class, and it is foreseeable that China's CPI will continue to rise in the following two years," Cao Lei, an analyst with Ping An Securities, told the Global Times Tuesday.
In a move believed to curb rising inflation, the People's Bank of China on October 19 announced the first interest rate increase in nearly three years, of 25 basis points.
"Given the fact that CPI will stand at 3.6 percent to 4 percent in October, the central bank is expected to raise the deposit reserve ratio in three months to better control inflation," Cao said, adding that the previous rise in the one-year lending and deposit rate is not enough.
To keep a reasonable inflation rate, Cao said authorities should lower the speed of economic growth, equalize income distribution, and increase investment in medical care and education.
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