BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s consumer prices extended their decline for a fourth month in January while producer prices also dropped, underscoring deflationary risks facing the world’s second-biggest economy as it struggles to mount a solid recovery.
The consumer price index (CPI) fell 0.8% in January from a year earlier, after a 0.3% drop in December, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Thursday.
The CPI rose 0.3% month-on-month from a 0.1% uptick the previous month.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a 0.5% fall year-on-year and a 0.4% gain month-on-month.
The producer price index (PPI) slid 2.5% from a year earlier in January after a 2.7% fall the previous month, compared with a 2.6% slide forecast in the Reuters poll.
The economy grew 5.2% in 2023, meeting the official target of around 5%, but the recovery has been shakier than investors had expected.
(Reporting by Liangping Gao, Qiaoyi Li and Ryan Woo; Editing by Kim Coghill)
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