China’s inflation numbers released Tuesday showed prices increased 6.5 per cent in the year to July with food inflation as high as 14.8 per cent, causing stock market investors to fret that monetary conditions in China must continue to tighten. Pork prices rose almost 57 per cent year on year – pork accounts for a third of the weighting of food prices in China’s CPI.

The silver lining just about visible amid the clouds is that pork will get cheaper as more pigs are rushed to market in coming months. India’s onion prices – similarly a bellwether of food inflation because of their widespread use in curries and lentil dishes – look more of a structural problem, however.

Onion prices doubled in some parts of western India last week because of the lateness of the monsoon. India’s food inflation was 8 per cent in July. Last month, the central bank raised interest rates by an unexpected 0.5 percentage points because, it said, inflation was unacceptably high. Economists said expectations among households of double-digit inflation had prompted the central bank to surprise the market with a big hike.