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(Yicai Global) July 10 -- China's producer inflation climbed to a six-month high last month on the back of higher prices for raw materials and energy, while the cost of living remained broadly unchanged.
The producer price index, a gauge of industrial profitability, rose by a stronger-than-expected 4.7 percent from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said today. The PPI showed a 0.3 percent gain from May. Chief economists surveyed by Yicai had earlier forecast an average year-on-year growth of 4.44 percent.
Producer inflation has now picked up for three months in a row after easing late last year.
The consumer price index increased 1.9 percent on the year, in line with expectations, as food prices rose at a faster pace because of countermeasures to US tariffs on Chinese goods. Yicai's chief economists had forecast a year-on-year uptick of 1.93 percent. The gain from the previous month was 0.1 percentage point.
"The government is likely to introduce special measures such as returning the charged 25 percent tariffs on some agricultural products to importers," economists at Nomura said in a note, Reuters reported.
The Chinese government is targeting inflation this year at 3 percent. It set the same goal in 2017.
Editor: Emmi Laine