China’s factory inflation hits 26-year high as power crunch bites
China’s factory gate inflation hit a 26-year high in October as coal prices soared amid a power crunch in the country’s industrial heartland, further squeezing profit margins for producers and heightening stagflation concerns.
The producer price index (PPI) climbed 13.5% from a year earlier, faster than the 10.7% rise in September, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement.
It matched a pace not seen since July 1995 and was faster than the 12.4% forecast by analysts in a Reuters poll.
Consumer price rises also quickened, although at a slower pace than factory gate prices. The consumer price index (CPI) rose 1.5% in October year-on-year, compared with September’s 0.7% rise.
