Publications
Partners
Beijing - China's consumer inflation sunk below 1% in January, the lowest in more than five years, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday.
China's consumer price index, the main gauge of inflation, grew 0.8% year-on-year in January, the bureau said. Food prices, accounting for nearly one-third of the weighted index, increased a modest 1.1% year-on-year.
The tempering price growth was attributed to "retreating food prices due to warmer weather during the period," the official Xinhua news agency quoted the bureau as saying.
"Global oil prices also helped drag down the price levels," the bureeau said.
China's producer price index, which measures wholesale inflation, fell 4.3% from a year earlier, the 35th straight month of decline.
The low inflation rate is the latest in a string of data indicating a deepening downturn in the Chinese economy.
A key measure of factory activity in China showed manufacturing contracted for the second straight month in January, according to both a private survey and a government survey.
The Purchasing Managers' Index compiled by financial services company HSBC stood at 49.7 for January, the second consecutive month with a final reading below 50, while the official index had a reading of 49.8.
A figure above 50 in both indexes generally means a positive outlook in the manufacturing sector, while below 50 is seen as negative.
China's economy grew by 7.4% in 2014, the weakest growth in 24 years, according to official figures released last month.
