China’s Factory Inflation Slows as Consumer Price Gains Ease

(Bloomberg) -- China’s factory inflation slowed for a fifth month while the consumer price index retreated from a four-year high.

The producer price index rose 3.1 percent in March from a year earlier, compared with the projected 3.3 percent rise in a Bloomberg survey and 3.7 percent in February. The consumer price index climbed 2.1 percent, the statistics bureau said Wednesday, versus a forecast of 2.6 percent and 2.9 percent in February.

The slowest factory inflation in more than a year may offer limited support to the world reflation cycle, amid rising trade tensions that may weigh on synchronized global growth. Domestic consumer prices are forecast to rise this year, while tariffs added to imports of U.S. products from soybeans to cars may boost inflation if implemented.

The slower PPI reading is in line with a Bloomberg Economics tracker, which uses daily movements of commodity prices to predict the monthly PPI reading.

“For now, there’s no sign of China exporting inflation to the world,” said Li Wei, a senior economist at Standard Chartered Plc in Shanghai, who predicts both PPI and CPI will stabilize in the range of 2 percent to 3 percent in the second half of 2018. “Policy makers won’t focus on inflation this year, instead they’ll prioritize tasks such as cutting leverage.”

The fading of the Lunar New Year holiday effects in March was the main reason for the CPI deceleration, the statistics bureau said in a statement released with the data.

--With assistance from Ailing Tan

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Xiaoqing Pi in Beijing at xpi1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeffrey Black at jblack25@bloomberg.net, Jeff Kearns, Ken Wills

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.

With assistance from Xiaoqing Pi