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BEIJING, November 9 (TMTPOST) — China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, increased 2.1 percent year on year in October, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Wednesday.

On a monthly basis, October's CPI  remained largely unchanged, contracting 0.2 percentage point from September to inch up 0.1%.

The decrease in the growth of CPI both on a yearly and a monthly basis was due to the drop in post-National Day holiday consumption demand compared to a high base in 2021, Dong Lijuan, a chief statistician with the NBS, said in a statement on the bureau's website.

Food prices in October fell 1.8 percentage points year-on-year to 7.0%, affecting the CPI by about 1.26 percentage points. Pork, a staple meat in China, saw prices surge 51.8 percent in October from last year.  The rise of pork prices was mainly driven by the shortage of supply, seasonal strengthening consumer demand, and "reluctance to sell" market sentiment, Dong said.

Food prices rose 0.1% in October, down 1.8 percentage points. Pork prices rose 9.4 percent from last month, expanding 4 percentage points from September. The prices of fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, and aquatic products reversed September's increases to decline by 4.5 percent, 1.6 percent, and 2.3 percent, month-on-month, respectively, as plenty of supplies hit the market and the demand weakened, Dong noted.

Non-food prices rose 1.1 percent from a year earlier, compared to the 1.5-percent rise in September, lifting consumer inflation by about 0.88 percentage points.

The core CPI excluding food and energy prices rose 0.6 percent year-on-year in October, indicating that demand remains sluggish. The PPI fell 1.3% year-on-year, down 2.2 percentage points from September, turning negative for the first time since 2021.

The data on Wednesday also showed China's producer price index, which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, decreased by 1.3 percent year-on-year in October.

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