China’s factory-gate price growth picks up in August as Iran war fuels energy volatility

China’s factory-gate price growth accelerated in August, while consumer inflation picked up again, amid volatile energy and commodity costs linked to the US-Israel war on Iran.

The producer price index rose 3.8 per cent year on year last month, up from 3.5 per cent in July, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Wednesday.

The reading beat a 3.6 per cent projection from economists polled by financial data provider Wind.

Meanwhile, the national consumer price index (CPI), a crucial gauge of inflation, rose 0.8 per cent year on year last month, rebounding after two months of slower growth. That compared with July’s 0.5 per cent reading and was broadly in line with Wind’s projection of a 0.78 per cent rise.

“Rising international prices for crude oil and non-ferrous metals drove up prices in related domestic sectors,” said Dong Lijuan, a senior statistician at NBS.

Dong noted that coal mining prices surged 26.6 per cent year on year in August, while non-ferrous metal processing rose 20.8 per cent. Prices in the oil and gas extraction industry climbed 10.5 per cent.