China’s consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, edged down 0.5 percent year on year in November, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data showed Saturday. NBS statistician Dong Lijuan attributed the fall to factors such as the decrease in prices of food and energy in November. The year-on-year CPI reading for November narrowed by 0.3 percentage points compared to October as energy prices became a main drag.
Energy price decrease contributed 0.19 percentage points to the CPI decline in the month, Dong said. Food prices were down 4.2 percent year on year, with the pace of decrease rising by 0.2 percentage points, pork prices went down 31.8 percent year on year, while prices for eggs, edible oil, beef, mutton, as well as poultry and aquatic products, fell by between 1.1 percent and 10.5 percent, the data showed.—APP
