Affected by the Spring Festival, CPI rose by 2.9% in February, and it is expected to fall back in March.

　　According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on the 9th, the national consumer price (CPI) rose by 2.9% year-on-year and 1.2% quarter-on-quarter. "The year-on-year increase in CPI was mainly due to the Spring Festival ‘ Wrong month ’ Impact. " Sheng Guoqing, senior statistician of the Urban Department of the National Bureau of Statistics, said that this year’s Spring Festival was in February, while last year’s "wrong month" caused a relatively low comparison base in February, and the price of food and services rose before and after the Spring Festival, leading to a year-on-year increase in CPI.

　　Affected by the Spring Festival effect, the domestic consumer price index (CPI) rose sharply year-on-year last month, and hit a new high in recent years. However, industry sources said that with the "Spring Festival factor" fading, it is expected that the year-on-year increase of domestic CPI will fall back in March.

　　The Spring Festival "Wrong Month" triggered the biggest CPI increase in recent years.

　　According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics yesterday, the national CPI rose by 1.2% month-on-month and 2.9% year-on-year, the biggest increase since 2015. When interpreting this phenomenon, Sheng Guoqing, senior statistician of the Urban Department of the National Bureau of Statistics, said that from a year-on-year perspective, the increase in CPI was mainly affected by the "wrong month" of the Spring Festival. This year’s Spring Festival is in February, while last year’s Spring Festival was in January. The "wrong month" of the Spring Festival resulted in a relatively low comparison base in February, and the increase in food and service prices around the Spring Festival led to a year-on-year increase in CPI. According to estimates, in the year-on-year increase of 2.9% in February, the impact of price changes last year was about 1.1 percentage points, and the impact of new price increases was about 1.8 percentage points.

　　Although affected by the Spring Festival factor, the increase of domestic CPI last month was not very obvious compared with that in January, and the chain-on-chain increase was about 0.6 percentage points. Moreover, this is not only the Spring Festival factor, but also affected by the superposition of the low temperature in the country. It is understood that there was a large-scale cooling weather in the country last month, which affected the production and transportation of some agricultural products. In addition, the demand and consumption increased during the Spring Festival, and the food price rose by 4.4%, affecting the CPI by about 0.88 percentage points. Among them, the price of fresh vegetables was the food category with the biggest increase last month, and the price rose by nearly 20% compared with January, reaching 18.1%. In addition, the price of aquatic products increased by 8.0% and the price of fresh fruit increased by 6.4%. Relatively speaking, the price of livestock meat has the smallest increase, only 2.0%. It is reported that the total increase in the prices of these four fresh foods affected the CPI by about 0.82 percentage points last month.

　　Rising labor costs in the service industry have pushed up non-food prices.

　　In addition to food, the Spring Festival factor has also pushed up the price of transportation and tourism. Last month, with the increase of travelers around the Spring Festival, the prices of air tickets and long-distance bus tickets increased by 19.7% and 5.8% respectively, and the fees of travel agencies and hotel accommodation also increased by 12.2% and 2.9% respectively. Together, these four prices affected the CPI increase by about 0.27 percentage points last month.

　　In addition, due to the concentrated return of urban migrant workers to their hometowns during the Spring Festival, the increase in labor costs in the service industry was also an important factor that pushed up the non-food prices last month, especially in the fields of vehicle repair and maintenance, haircuts and family services. The data shows that the price of vehicle repair and maintenance rose by nearly 10% last month compared with January, and the price of haircut also rose by more than 5%. In addition, the price of family services rose by 3.5% last month, which together affected the CPI by about 0.06 percentage points.

　　The Spring Festival factor led to last month

　　The growth rate of manufacturing industry has slowed down

　　The reporter of Beiqing Daily learned that as the most important festival in Chinese, the Spring Festival factor plays a very important role in many important economic data of China. In addition to the "routine" CPI increase caused by the Spring Festival effect, it will have a negative impact on the production field. For example, the Spring Festival factor directly led to the decline of the domestic manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) last month. According to the data released by the Service Industry Research Center of the National Bureau of Statistics and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, the PMI of domestic manufacturing industry was 50.3% in February, down 1.0 percentage points from January, indicating that the growth rate of manufacturing industry has slowed down.

　　Zhao Qinghe, a senior statistician of the Service Industry Research Center of the National Bureau of Statistics, said at that time that from the historical data, most of the PMI in the month of the Spring Festival would be adjusted, so the decline of the index last month was a normal fluctuation. He analyzed that the main characteristics of China’s manufacturing industry in February were the slowdown in production activities and the slowdown in demand growth. Because before and after the Spring Festival is the traditional off-season of manufacturing industry, enterprises generally stop production and reduce production, and market activity is weakened.

　　Last month, the year-on-year increase of PPI continued to fall.

　　According to the data of PPI released by the National Bureau of Statistics yesterday, the PPI decreased by 0.1% month-on-month and increased by 3.7% year-on-year, showing a slight decrease month-on-month and the year-on-year increase continued to decline.

　　From the ring comparison, the PPI changed from an increase in January to a slight decrease in February, in which the prices of means of production decreased by 0.1% and the prices of means of subsistence remained flat. Among the main industries, the price of ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industry decreased by 0.7%. From rising to falling, there are gas production and supply industries, non-ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industries, and non-metallic mineral products industries. The oil and natural gas exploration industry experienced a decline, rising by 0.4%, down 2.9 percentage points from January; Oil, coal and other fuel processing industries rose by 0.2% and dropped by 2.4 percentage points.

　　From a year-on-year perspective, the PPI growth rate continued to fall, down 0.6 percentage points from January. Among the major industries, the non-metallic mineral products industry experienced a decline, rising by 13.0%, 0.4 percentage points lower than that in January; Ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industry, up 11.5%, down 3.6 percentage points; Oil, coal and other fuel processing industries rose by 10.0%, down by 0.8 percentage points; Non-ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industries rose by 7.4% and dropped by 3.0 percentage points; The manufacturing of chemical raw materials and chemical products rose by 6.1%, down by 2.1 percentage points. The above five industries together affected the year-on-year increase of PPI by about 0.57 percentage points. According to estimates, among the 3.7% year-on-year increase in February, the hikes of price changes last year were about 3.5 percentage points, and the impact of new price increases was about 0.2 percentage points.

　　Text/reporter zhangqin