BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s annual consumer inflation rate accelerated to 2.1 percent in July, beating expectations, official data showed on Thursday.
The consumer price index (CPI) had been expected to rise 1.9 percent from a year earlier, according to a Reuters poll, unchanged from the pace in June.
The producer price index (PPI) rose 4.6 percent in July from a year earlier, cooling from the previous month’s increase of 4.7 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.
Analysts polled by Reuters had predicted producer inflation would slow to 4.4 percent in July. June’s reading was the highest in six months.
China has set its 2018 consumer inflation goal at “around 3 percent”, in line with last year’s target.