ECONOMY ListPage

By Dai Qi

China's Consumer Price Index (CPI), the main gauge to predict the inflation rate, rose by 2.1 percent year-on-year in July, according to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday.

It is the highest increase rate in recent three months.

Sheng Guoqing, an analyst from the NBS, said that the increase was brought about by the rise in the price of air tickets, hotel accommodation and other factors related to tourism because of the summer holidays. Hot weather, which is unfavorable for the production and transport of vegetables, also drove the CPI up, as was reported by Ecns, a news network in China.

Zhao Xijun, an expert from the Renmin University of China, held a different view. "The main reason for the increase lies in the rise in the price of raw materials and labor costs," said Zhao.

To be specific, the index of the cities increased by 2.1 percent, rural areas 2.0 percent; food prices 0.5 percent, non-food prices 2.4 percent; consumer goods 1.8 percent, and service prices 2.5 percent.

Data shows that China's average CPI in the first seven months this year climbed by 2.0 percent when compared to that of last year.

On a month-on-month basis, the index went up by 0.3 percent with cities up 0.4 percent, rural areas 0.1 percent; food prices 0.1 percent, non-food prices 0.3 percent;

consumer goods 0.1 percent, and service prices 0.7 percent.

Lian Ping, the chief economist of the Bank of Communications, said that he saw a stable trend for the CPI and it was less likely to see a surge in the inflation rate in the second half of this year.

He predicted that the CPI would see an increasing rate of about 2 percent in the second half of 2018.