CHINA (Reuters) — The Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the Producer Price Index (PPI) in China remain stable up to now and China will continue to deepen price reform said an official with China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) at a press conference on Monday in Beijing.
“China’s price level was generally stable last year and remains so till now. The CPI grew 2 percent in the 2016 year on year, under the predicted 3 percent. Meanwhile, the PPI dropped 1.4 percent in 2016, but rose sharply starting from last September and reversed the negative monthly growth. The CPI in January this year was 2.5 percent higher than the same period last year. While the PPI really increased at a high rate in January this year to reach 6.9 percent up from one year earlier, but it is still on the normal side,” said Ning Jizhe, vice-chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission.
According to Ning, the hike in PPI is a recovering growth since it fell 5.3 percent in January last year.
The prince reform in China has yielded remarkable results in the past 30 years and more, with the market-priced commodities and services accounting for about 97 percent of the total, said Wang, adding that China will further deepen the price reform and strengthen market price monitoring.
“The first is to ensure the full implementation of the existing price reform, covering salt, agricultural produce, and water for agriculture. The second is to push forward the price reform in sectors like electric power, healthcare, and transportation. The third is to further beef up market monitoring, early warning, and supervision. Also, we will release relevant policies and market information timely to stabilize the market expectation. We hope our friends in the media can join us in this work. Besides, we will do well the price supervision and anti-monopoly work to maintain market order in terms of the price. The fourth is to connect with the international market in an orderly manner to further improve relevant mechanism and ease the impact on the price in the domestic market caused by price fluctuations on the international market,” he said.