In November, China's consumer price index (CPI) edged down 0.1% month-on-month but rose 0.7% year-on-year, marking the highest increase since March 2024. The core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, climbed 1.2% year-on-year. Meanwhile, the producer price index (PPI) increased 0.1% month-on-month but declined 2.2% year-on-year, influenced by domestic supply-demand optimization in certain sectors and global commodity price fluctuations.
The year-on-year CPI growth expanded by 0.5 percentage points from October, primarily driven by 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. Notably, vegetable prices surged 14.5%, ending a nine-month decline, while fruit prices increased 0.7%. Beef and lamb prices rose 6.2% and 3.7%, respectively, whereas pork and poultry prices fell 15.0% and 0.6%, with narrower declines. Energy prices dropped 3.4%, with gasoline prices plunging 7.5%.
The core CPI's 1.2% growth marked the third consecutive month above 1%. Service prices and non-energy industrial goods rose 0.7% and 2.1%, contributing 0.29 and 0.53 percentage points to CPI growth, respectively. Household appliances and clothing prices increased 4.9% and 2.0%, while airfares, domestic services, and dining-out prices rose 7.0%, 2.4%, and 1.2%. Gold jewelry prices soared 58.4%, whereas fuel and new energy vehicle prices dropped 2.5% and 2.4%.
Month-on-month, CPI dipped 0.1%, mainly due to seasonal declines in service prices (-0.4%). Post-holiday travel demand eased, reducing hotel stays, airfares, and rental fees by 10.4%, 10.2%, and 3.6%, respectively. Domestic gasoline prices fell 2.2% amid global oil price adjustments. Non-energy industrial goods rose 0.3%, with gold jewelry up 7.3% and winter apparel up 0.8%. Food prices gained 0.5%, led by a 7.2% vegetable price surge due to weather disruptions, offsetting declines in pork (-2.2%), eggs (-2.1%), and seafood (-1.8%).
PPI rose 0.1% month-on-month for the second straight month, driven by seasonal demand for coal (+4.1%) and gas (+0.7%). Winter demand boosted wool (+0.6%) and down product (+0.2%) prices. Global metal price hikes lifted domestic nonferrous mining (+2.6%) and smelting (+2.1%) sectors, while falling oil prices dragged down petroleum extraction (-2.4%) and refining (-2.2%). Year-on-year, PPI's 2.2% decline widened slightly due to base effects.
Policy measures showed positive impacts: coal mining, PV equipment, and lithium battery price declines narrowed by 3.8, 2.0, and 0.7 percentage points, respectively. New energy vehicle price drops eased by 0.6 percentage points. Emerging industries like advanced materials and AI drove storage device (+13.9%), graphite (+3.8%), and chip (+1.7%) prices higher. Consumer recovery lifted art goods (+20.6%), sports equipment (+4.3%), and nutrition food (+1.1%) prices, while home appliance price declines narrowed.
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