Business     

China CPI growth falls to 3.2% in Feb.

China.org.cn, March 9, 2012

• China's consumer price index rose 3.2 percent year-on-year in February. [File photo]

  China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Friday that China's main inflation indicator consumer price index (CPI) climbed by 3.2 percent year-on-year in February, marking the lowest growth rate since June 2010 .

  February's CPI growth declined from the 4.5-percent increase seen in January, when traditional Chinese Lunar New Year shopping spree boosted retail prices.

  In the first two months of this year, the CPI grew 3.9 percent, compared with same time last year. On a monthly basis, CPI dipped 0.1 percent in February, the NBS said.

  According to the NBS, food prices, which account for nearly one-third of the weighting in the calculation of China's CPI, increased 6.2 percent last month year-on-year. Food price growth also slowed from January's 10.5 percent rise.

  China's Producer Price Index (PPI), a main gauge of inflation at the wholesale level, remained unchanged in February from a year earlier, the NBS said.

  The zero-growth reading, the lowest since December 2009, further eased from 0.7 percent in January, after hitting a 31-month high of 7.5 percent in July last year, NBS data showed.

  On a month-on-month basis, the country's February PPI grew 0.1 percent from January, the NBS said in a statement on its website.

  Meanwhile, producer purchase prices grew 1 percent year on year in February and 0.1 percent from a month ago, it said.

  In the first two months of this year, the PPI climbed 0.4 percent year on year, while producer purchase prices gained 1.5 percent during the period, the NBS said.

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