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.