The Chinese government reported that the Producers’ Price Index (PPI) for manufactured goods rose by 6.1% in January over the same month last year. Purchasing prices for raw material, fuels and power rose by 8.9%, according to the National Bureau of Statistics of China.


Pressure was highest in the earliest stages of production thanks to rising commodity and energy prices. The PPI for means of production increased 6.5 percent over last January, the government reported. That included an increase of 8.5% in the raw materials industry and 3.8% in the manufacturing industry.

 

Within the consumer goods sector, the index rose 4.6%, including 10.4% for foodstuffs, 2.2% for clothing and 3.0% for commodities. The PPI for durable consumer goods dropped 0.6 percent.

In terms of different categories:


PPI for crude oil increased 29.9 percent year-on-year. The prices for oil products, such as gasoline, diesel and kerosene increased 7.3, 10.0 and 10.9 percent respectively. The PPI for crude coal, meanehile, increased 14.9 percent.


PPI for polystyrene dropped 4.9 percent compared with the same month a year ago. While the prices producers pay for latex surged 20.7, prices for terylene declined 0.2 percent, year on year.


PPI for smelting and pressing of ferrous metals grew 17.3 percent from the same month last year. PPIs for ordinary large rolled-steels, medium rolled-steels, small rolled-steels, wire rod and heavy steel plate correspondingly increased 17.3, 28.6, 26.7, 25.0 and 16.6 percent respectively.


PPI for smelting and pressing of nonferrous metals gained a year-on-year rise of 4.7 percent. Of the total, PPIs for copper and lead up 2.0 and 27.9 percent, while that for aluminum and zinc down by 2.9 and 26.1 percent respectively year-on-year.


The government is scheduled to release January's Consumer Price Index Feb. 19.