BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s factory-gate inflation cooled in May, official data showed on Friday, depressed by weak demand for steel, aluminium and other key industrial commodities due to tight COVID-19 curbs.
The producer price index (PPI) rose 6.4% year-on-year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement, after the 8.0% rise in April, and in line with forecasts in a Reuters poll.
The consumer price index (CPI) gained 2.1% from a year earlier in May, the same as April’s growth. In a Reuters poll, the CPI was expected to rise 2.2%.
The world’s second-largest economy has slowed markedly in recent months, hit by strict COVID-19 controls, disrupting supply chains and jolting production and consumption.
(Reporting by Lianging Gao and Ryan Woo; Editing by Sam Holmes)
