China’s consumer prices slipped into deflation in August, adding to signs that the world’s second-largest economy is losing momentum after exports grew more slowly last month.
The official consumer price index contracted 0.4 per cent year on year last month, official data showed on Wednesday, a sharper fall than the 0.2 per cent decline forecast in a Bloomberg poll of analysts. CPI was flat in July.
China’s producer prices index, meanwhile, fell 2.9 per cent year on year in August, the figures from the National Bureau of Statistics showed, compared with the 3.6 per cent drop in July and the first time in five months that the gauge showed signs of improvement.