CPI growth eases for fourth consecutive month

People buy vegetables and fruits at a supermarket in Lianyungang City, East China's Jiangsu province, May 12, 2020. [Photo/Xinhua]

China's consumer inflation slowed to a 14-month low in May, as the food supply increased while business resumption deepened, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday.

Growth in the consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, eased for the fourth consecutive month to 2.4 percent year-on-year last month, versus 3.3 percent for the previous month, the bureau reported.

Food prices increased 10.6 percent year-on-year in May, down 4.2 percentage points from April. The rise in pork prices, the biggest contributor to CPI growth, slowed to 81.7 percent year-on-year, versus 96.9 percent in April.

The core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, went up 1.1 percent year-on-year last month, unchanged from a month earlier.

Meanwhile, the producer price index, which gauges factory gate prices, declined 3.7 percent year-on-year, partly due to the high comparison base of last May.

Consumer inflation is expected to remain on a downward trajectory over the second half of the year, with overseas stimulus to have a limited impact on China's inflation in the coming months, said Wang Tao, chief China economist at Swiss bank UBS.

Whole-year CPI may stand at around 2.4 percent, well below this year's control target of 3.5 percent, according to Wang.