China’s consumer inflation picks up after holiday spending spurt

Three woman eat snack food as the walk through a popular shopping street wearing traditional clothing on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year in Beijing on February 3, 2025. Bloomberg
Three woman eat snack food as the walk through a popular shopping street wearing traditional clothing on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year in Beijing on February 3, 2025. Bloomberg

China’s consumer inflation accelerated for the first time since August, in what’s likely a blip caused by a burst of household spending around the Lunar New Year holiday even as deflationary pressures persist.

The consumer price index rose 0.5 percent in January from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said Sunday, compared with a 0.1percent gain in the previous month. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg was a 0.4 percent increase.

A temporary spending boom during the eight-day break is briefly obscuring the extent of the deflationary challenge facing the world’s second-biggest economy.

China’s factory deflation extended into a 28th month with a 2.3 percent drop, flat with the index’s contraction in December.

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