China's consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.7% year-on-year in November 2025, marking the fastest growth since March 2024, while core CPI increased 1.2%. The producer price index (PPI) edged up 0.1% month-on-month but declined 2.2% year-on-year, reflecting mixed industrial sector trends.
**CPI Analysis: Food Prices Drive Acceleration** The 0.7% annual CPI growth represented a 0.5 percentage point acceleration from October, primarily due to food prices shifting from decline to growth. Food prices rose 0.2% after a 2.9% drop in October, contributing 0.04 percentage points to CPI growth. Key food items showed significant changes: - Fresh vegetable prices surged 14.5%, ending a nine-month decline streak and adding 0.49 percentage points to CPI growth - Fresh fruit prices turned positive at 0.7% - Beef and lamb prices rose 6.2% and 3.7% respectively - Pork and poultry prices declined at slower rates of 15.0% and 0.6% Energy prices fell 3.4%, with gasoline prices dropping 7.5%. Core CPI (excluding food and energy) maintained steady growth at 1.2% for three consecutive months.
**Sector-Specific Trends** Services and non-energy industrial goods prices rose 0.7% and 2.1% respectively, contributing 0.29 and 0.53 percentage points to CPI growth. Notable increases included: - Household appliances (+4.9%) and clothing (+2.0%) - Airfares (+7.0%), domestic services (+2.4%), and dining out (+1.2%) - Gold jewelry prices surged 58.4% Vehicle prices declined, with fuel-powered and new energy cars down 2.5% and 2.4% respectively.
**Monthly CPI Movement** CPI dipped 0.1% month-on-month, mainly due to seasonal service price declines: - Travel-related services dropped significantly post-holiday (hotels -10.4%, airfares -10.2%) - Rental prices fell 0.2% during the off-season - Gasoline prices declined 2.2% on international oil price movements Non-energy industrial goods rose 0.3%, with gold jewelry up 7.3% and winter clothing up 0.8%. Food prices increased 0.5%, driven by a 7.2% surge in fresh vegetable prices due to weather-related supply constraints.
**PPI Trends: Mixed Industrial Performance** PPI showed continued month-on-month growth (0.1%) for the second consecutive month, with sector-specific trends: - Seasonal demand boosted coal (+4.1%), coal processing (+3.4%), and gas (+0.7%) prices - Winter products saw price increases (wool fabrics +0.6%, down products +0.2%) - International commodity impacts varied: non-ferrous metals rose (copper +2.9%, gold +1.4%) while oil-related sectors declined (-2.4% for extraction, -2.2% for refined products)
**Annual PPI Developments** The 2.2% year-on-year PPI decline slightly widened by 0.1 percentage points, with notable sector trends: 1. Reduced price declines in competitive industries: - Coal mining (-3.8 percentage point improvement) - Solar equipment (-2.0pp) and lithium battery (-0.7pp) manufacturing - New energy vehicles (-0.6pp improvement) 2. Emerging industry growth drivers: - External storage devices (+13.9%) - Graphite products (+3.8%) - Integrated circuits (+1.7%) - Service robots (+1.1%) 3. Consumer sector recovery: - Arts/crafts (+20.6%) - Sports equipment (+4.3%) - Nutritional foods (+1.1%) - Home appliances showed narrowing price declines
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