China’s Inflation Cools in January, Providing Opportunity for Policy Easing

Source: National Bureau of Statistics of China

China’s inflation slowed down in January as food and energy prices weakened, giving Beijing more opportunity to bolster a slowing economy. CSI 300 Index up +0.39%, CNY USD down -0.01%

• The producer price index jumped 9.1% from a year earlier, down from 10.3% in December as consumer-price growth eased to 0.9%. Both measures were below the median forecasts by economists in a Bloomberg survey.
• Slower inflation in recent months has given the central bank scope to downgrade interest rates and boost liquidity into the financial systems to support a slowing economy.
• Chinese government shifted to a more pro-growth bias late last year as the property market plunged and repeated spikes in outbreaks hampered growth in the second-largest economy in the world.
• Xing Zhaopeng, the senior China strategist at Australia and New Zealand Group, stated that the inflation data signals both the weak demand-side and easing supply-side challenges.
• PBOC Governor Yi Gang stated that Wednesday’s monetary policy will remain supportive even though he anticipates the economy to bounce back to its potential growth rate in 2022.