Egg and pork prices fall for the first time, a lower CPI increase in September becomes the consensus
As egg prices and pork prices, which have an important impact on household consumption, saw their first decline after consecutive rises, a lower CPI increase in September has also become the consensus in the industry.
On October 15, the National Bureau of Statistics will release the September CPI and PPI figures. Wang Jun, deputy director of the Consulting and Research Department of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, said in an interview with a reporter from Securities Daily that in September, pork prices and egg prices showed a declining trend, which will cause the September CPI increase to fall back, and a range of 2.1% to 2.2% may become the operating range of the September CPI.
"Since the beginning of this year, the overall price level has shown a trend of gradual decline, which is also consistent with the overall economic performance this year. Weak aggregate demand has also been reflected in the price level. Both consumer prices and industrial product prices have shown a downward trend, and sluggish demand is also a relatively prominent feature at present," Wang Jun said.
Dong Dengxin, director of the Institute of Finance and Securities at Wuhan University of Science and Technology, said in an interview with a reporter from Securities Daily that the September CPI increase will basically be flat with August and will not show obvious changes, while PPI will move in the direction of a gradually narrowing negative growth.
The Bank of Communications Financial Research Center predicts that food prices in September will rise slightly month on month, estimated at around 0.5%. Considering that non-food prices have been basically stable recently, it is expected that the year-on-year increase in non-food prices in September will be basically flat with the previous month (about 1.5%). At the same time, because the carryover effect in September was about 0.3%, down sharply by 0.8 percentage points from the previous month. Based on the above reasons, it is preliminarily judged that the year-on-year CPI increase in September will fall back considerably from the previous month and return to below 2%.
The Bank of Communications Financial Research Center pointed out that the continuous decline in the year-on-year CPI over the past two months was mainly driven by the decline in the carryover effect. Considering that the carryover factors in the fourth quarter are all at low levels, the key to affecting the year-on-year CPI level depends on the fluctuation of new price-increasing factors. From the current situation, pork prices are still in negative year-on-year growth, and a trend-based rise within the year is unlikely. Although there has been an impact from dry weather, domestic grain prices have generally operated steadily, with no obvious fluctuations. Therefore, against the background of economic growth stabilizing while slowing, the new price-increasing factors for the year-on-year CPI in the fourth quarter will not rise significantly. The year-on-year CPI increase in the second half of the year will be lower than in the first half, and it is expected that the year-on-year CPI growth rate in the second half of the year will adjust slightly downward to around 2.1%, with the full-year CPI increase at about 2.2%.