BEIJING, (MILLAT ONLINE/APP/AFP): Prices for goods at the factory gate
in China jumped in March, the government said Wednesday, in a positive sign of strengthening demand for the world’s second-largest economy.
The producer price index (PPI) rose 7.6 percent year-on-year in
March, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, slightly beating economists’ expectations of a 7.5 percent increase in a Bloomberg News survey.
Factory gate inflation “has eased”, NBS analyst Sheng Guoqing said in a statement, noting that March’s figure fell back from a 7.8 percent increase in the previous month after five months of expansion.
The consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.9 percent in the month, the data showed, beating a Bloomberg analysis that forecast a 0.8 percent increase.
The figures were affected by a drop in food costs, while prices for medical care, housing, education and entertainment, and transportation and communication have increased, Sheng said.