China Consumer Inflation Picked up Modestly in December

China's consumer inflation accelerated slightly in December, with food prices falling less sharply and exerting of a less drag on the overall index, official data showed Wednesday.

China's consumer price index increased 1.8% in December from a year earlier, compared with a 1.7% gain in November, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

Food prices fell 0.4% in December from a year earlier, after dropping 1.1% in November. Non-food prices grew 2.4% on year, compared with 2.5% on-year growth in November.

The key inflation reading was slightly below the 1.9% increase forecast by a Wall Street Journal poll of economists.

For 2017, CPI rose 1.6% from 2016. Policy makers in Beijing aimed to keep inflation under about 3% last year.

On a month-over-month basis, the CPI rose 0.3% in December from a month earlier. In November, the index was unchanged from the previous month.

The producer price index rose 4.9% in December, slowing for the second-straight month, compared with a 5.8% on-year increase in November. The reading came in a tad faster than the 4.8% increase forecast by the poll of economists.

On a month-over-month basis, PPI increased 0.8% in December from a month earlier. In November, it rose 0.5% from the preceding month.

The PPI climbed 6.3% in 2017, reversing 2016's 1.4% drop.

--Liyan Qi, Grace Zhu

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 09, 2018 21:10 ET (02:10 GMT)