Original title: Pork price decline expands CPI year-on-year increase continues to fall
The National Bureau of Statistics released July national CPI (Consumer Price Index) data on August 9. Affected by the drop in food prices, especially pork prices, the CPI rose by 1.0% year-on-year in July, a decrease of 0.1 percentage points from the previous month. Looking ahead, the industry believes that in the second half of the year, live pig prices will stabilize and consolidate, and prices are expected to maintain a moderate increase throughout the year.
Dong Lijuan, a senior statistician in the City Department of the National Bureau of Statistics, pointed out that in July, all regions and departments coordinated the epidemic prevention and control, flood prevention and disaster relief, and economic and social development work, actively implemented the policy of ensuring supply and stabilizing prices, and market supply and demand were generally stable.
“The CPI has turned from a decline to an increase, and the year-on-year growth rate has fallen.” Dong Lijuan analyzed that from a month-on-month perspective, the CPI in July changed from a 0.4% decline in the previous month to an increase of 0.3%. Among them, food prices fell by 0.4%, 1.8 percentage points lower than the previous month, affecting the CPI drop by about 0.06 percentage points. Non-food prices changed from flat last month to an increase of 0.5%, which affected the increase in CPI by about 0.37 percentage points.
From a year-on-year perspective, the CPI rose by 1.0%, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the previous month. Among them, food prices fell by 3.7%, an increase of 2.0 percentage points from the previous month, affecting the CPI drop by about 0.69 percentage points. In food, pork prices fell by 43.5%, an increase of 7.0 percentage points from the previous month.
Non-food prices rose by 2.1%, an increase of 0.4 percentage points from the previous month, affecting the CPI to rise by about 1.70 percentage points. Among non-food products, the price of industrial consumer goods rose by 2.8%, an increase of 0.3%. Among them, the prices of airline tickets, gasoline, diesel and liquefied petroleum gas rose by 53.5%, 25.4%, 28.2% and 13.5%, respectively.
Wen Bin, chief researcher of China Minsheng Bank, said that the fall in CPI growth was mainly due to the fall in food prices. Among them, due to the continuous restoration of the supply of live pigs, the price of pork fell by 43.5%, an increase of 7 percentage points, which is the main factor leading to the continuous fall in food prices. Affected by extreme weather such as typhoons and heavy rains, the cost of production, storage and transportation of fresh vegetables has increased, and prices have risen compared to the previous month.
“In the 1% year-on-year increase in CPI, the impact of the tail-lifting factor was about 0.5%, a decrease of 0.3% from the previous month. The new price increase factor was 0.5%, an increase of 0.2% from the previous month. Excluding food and The core CPI of energy prices rose by 1.3% year-on-year, an increase of 0.4 percentage points from the previous month, and the overall increase was relatively mild.” said Tang Jianwei, chief researcher at the Bank of Communications Financial Research Center.
Looking ahead, China Everbright Bank analyst Zhou Maohua predicts that prices will rise moderately in the second half of the year. “Due to the government’s measures to stabilize pork price fluctuations, pork demand is expected to improve in the second half of the year, supply and demand will tend to balance, and the year-on-year decline in pork prices is expected to narrow.”
Gao Feng, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce, said recently that with the gradual digestion of large pigs for slaughter in the early stage and the support of national purchasing and storage policies, it is expected that the prices of live pigs and pork will be stable and consolidate in the second half of the year. Wan Jinsong, Director of the Price Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, pointed out that the price of live pigs is expected to continue to rebound in stages in the future.
Tang Jianwei believes that the national live pig inventory is at a high level, and pork prices are expected to continue to run at a low level, which makes it difficult to significantly increase the CPI. Non-food prices tend to rise, but considering the poor transmission of PPI to CPI, the increase in the price of subsistence will remain at a low level, and the increase in non-food prices will be more moderate. After July, the CPI carry-over factor has declined and will not lift the year-on-year increase in CPI.
Liu Aihua, a spokesperson for the National Bureau of Statistics and Director of the Department of Comprehensive Statistics of the National Economy, also said recently that food prices will not have much pressure to rise in the context of another bumper harvest of grain and stable pork prices. There are foundations and conditions for keeping prices rising moderately throughout the year.
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