Beijing - XINHUA
China\'s consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, grew 2 percent year on year in November. It indicated that the inflection point of price of commodities loomed, which would fuel the inflationary pressure, analysts said. The National Bureau of Statistics announced that November\'s inflation rate rose 0.1 percent from a 33-month low of 1.7 percent in October. China\'s producer price index (PPI), which measures inflation at the wholesale level, fell 2.2 percent year on year in November, the NBS said. It marked the ninth straight month of decline after the PPI dropped in March for the first time since December 2009. However, the decline was smaller than the 2.8-percent decrease in October, suggesting that manufacturing activity has improved. \"A combination of low inflation and modest economic growth is surely a desirable outcome for China in the difficult year of 2012,\" said Wang Jun, an expert with the China Center for International Economic Exchanges. TURNING POINT OF CPI IS EMERGING? \"Rises in the prices of pork and vegetables mainly contributed to the climbing CPI growth,\" said Lian Ping, chief economist at the Bank of Communication. Food prices, which account for nearly one-third of the weighting in the calculation of China\'s CPI, rose 3 percent in November from one year earlier, pushing the index up 0.95 percentage points. \"It is gradually turning cold in November and the food supplies were disrupted by bad weather across the country.\" Lian noted. Vegetable prices jumped 11.3 percent year on year in November. Lian predicted that the November\'s reading marked a turning point. Affected by recovering domestic demand, increasing pork prices and rises in labor and land costs, prices will continue to increase in the next year, he added. Besides, some economists and experts expressed the similar views that China was already on a moderate recovery path. \"For 2013, we label it a year of recovery.... Our forecast is that China\'s GDP growth will go up from about 7.6 percent this year to about 8 percent next year. The recovery will be mainly driven by some cynical recovery as well as government policies,\" UBS China economist Wang Tao said. She expected government policy support, which has been in place since the spring of this year, will continue to play its role. That is reflected by increasing infrastructure spending, which has been supported by increasing credit into the economy.