China consumer prices rise at fastest pace since 2023

Chinese consumer prices rose last month at their fastest pace in nearly three years, official data showed Friday, extending a period of growth following months of deflationary pressure in the world's second-largest economy.

The consumer price index (CPI), a key measure of inflation, rose 0.8 percent year-on-year in December, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.

The reading was in line with a Bloomberg forecast and the biggest jump since February 2023, when consumer prices were up one percent year-on-year.

Consumer demand rose last month as the new year approached, NBS statistician Dong Lijuan said in a statement.

"Policies aimed at expanding domestic demand and promoting consumption continued to show results," Dong said, adding that the CPI rise was mainly driven by higher food prices.

Inflation was at zero for 2025 overall, NBS data showed. According to Bloomberg, it was the lowest full-year level since 2009.

While Beijing has been attempting to shift towards a growth model based more on domestic consumption and less on exports and manufacturing, success has been limited.

"Headline CPI inflation edged up to its highest level since China's reopening from zero-COVID," Zichun Huang of Capital Economics said in a note.

"But this was due to a weather-related pickup in food prices rather than success of the "anti-involution" campaign," she added, referring to a policy combatting price cutting and excessive competition damaging to the economy.

"Without stronger demand-side measures, we think overcapacity and the resulting deflationary pressures will persist in the coming years."

The producer price index -- which measures the cost of goods at the factory gate -- dropped 1.9 percent on-year in December, the NBS said. The Bloomberg survey had forecast a decline of two percent.

The PPI has been in deflation for more than three years, reflecting weak demand and a global oversupply of Chinese manufactured goods.

Huang, the economist, also warned that excess supply issues in China's manufacturing sector remain largely unresolved.