China's CPI Up 3.1% in May

By Li Peng, Wang Yi
Published: 2010-06-11



China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 3.1 percent in may from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced at a news briefing on Friday morning.

The figure was 0.3 percentage points higher than April's, and 0.1 percentage points higher than the inflation target set by Premier Wen Jiabao druing the country's top legislative meetings earlier this year.

A close look at the April figure shows that food prices rose 6.1 percent from a year earlier, while non-food prices were up 1.6 percent year-on-year, said NBS spokesman Sheng Laiyun.

However, on a monthly basis, the indicator in May was 0.1 percentage points lower than April's figure.

The producer price index (PPI), another measure of inflation at the wholesale level, rose 7.1 percent from a year earlier, the NBS said.

The PPI for May was 0.3 percentage points higher than the April figure.

The statistics bureau also released statistics on investment and consumption.

Urban fixed-assets investment in the first five months of 2010 registered a year-on-year increase of 25.9 percent to reach 6.73 trillion yuan (985.7 billion US dollars). Of that figure, investment in real estate reached 1.39 trillion yuan (203.6 billion US dollars), up 38.2 percent from a year earlier.

During the same period, retail sales of consumer goods nationwide reached 6.03 trillion yuan (883.2 billion US dollars), up 18.2 percent from a year earlier.

The report also showed that, the industrial value-added in large scale industry, including all state-owned enterprise and other industrial enterprises with yearly sales of more than 5 million yuan, was up by 16.5% year-on-year

At the news briefing, the spokesman condemned the premature leak of May's economic indicators and stated that the bureau is investigating the leak in accordance with relevant official procedure.

On June 9, Reuters reported that a senior government official revealed key economic figures for May at an internal investors conference.

The People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, also released May's lending figures earlier today.

Yuan-denominated new loans issued in May totaled 639.4 billion yuan (93.6 billion US dollars), while yuan-denominated deposits increased by 1.08 trillion yuan (158.1 billion US dollars) over the same period.

Domestic banking stocks increased on the back of the new lending figures.


Links and Sources
National Bureau of Statistics:
5月份国民经济主要指标数据 (Chinese)
People's Bank of China: 2010年5月金融统计数据报告 (Chinese)
Business Spectator: China consumer prices accelerated in May
Sina: Graph