Under pressure from falling food costs, consumer prices dropped 0.3%, the National Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday, below the median estimate of minus 0.2% in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The core consumer price index, which excludes volatile items such as food and energy, rose to an 19-month high of 1%.
China’s deflation eased in September, even as the pace of improvement is failing to halt the country’s longest streak of economy-wide price declines since market reforms in the late 1970s.
Prices at the factory gate fell 2.3% from a year earlier after slipping 2.9% in August, the 36th straight month of declines that was in line with forecasts. Producer deflation moderated for a second month, though it remained unchanged at zero in month-on-month terms.
