Zhongxin Finance, February 16 (Reporter Xie Yiguan) On February 16, the National Bureau of Statistics will announce the national consumer price index (CPI) for January 2022. Many institutions predict that the increase in CPI in January may continue to fall.

January CPI year-on-year increase may fall

　　Driven by the increase in the decline in pork prices, the year-on-year increase in CPI in December 2021 will drop significantly, returning to the "1 era".

In addition, the CPI for the whole year of 2021 will be within the control target of around 3%.

CPI rise and fall chart.

from the National Bureau of Statistics

　　What will be the year-on-year CPI growth in January 2022?

According to the statistics of Flush iFinD, the average forecast of 11 institutions for the year-on-year increase of CPI in January was 1.26%.

If the above average forecasts are fulfilled, the year-on-year CPI growth rate in January will continue to fall.

　　"The price of edible agricultural products has dropped month-on-month since the beginning of January, with an average of 124.44 points in the first three weeks, a decrease of 1.4 percentage points month-on-month, and the year-on-year decline expanded." Liu Xuezhi, a senior researcher at the Bank of Communications Financial Research Center, said that pork prices fell as a whole, and on January 1 From January to 26, the national average wholesale price of pork was 22.2 yuan/kg, down nearly 7.5 percentage points from the previous month.

　　"After calculation, the CPI inflation factor in January was 0.39%. Based on the above, it is expected that the month-on-month increase in food prices in January will be limited and will be lower than in previous years. The median value is 1.2%, which is lower than December last year." Liu Xuezhi pointed out.

CPI may rise slightly in 2022

　　According to the monitoring by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, in the fifth week of 2022 (January 31-February 6), the weekly average price of pork wholesale market was 21.86 yuan per kilogram, which was flat month-on-month and 51.7% lower than the same period last year; The price was 5.97 yuan per kilogram, a month-on-month increase of 3.5% and a year-on-year decrease of 2.0%; the weekly average price of the 6 key monitored fruits was 7.03 yuan per kilogram, a month-on-month increase of 2.8% and a year-on-year increase of 11.2%.

The pork section in a large supermarket in Fengtai District, Beijing.

Photo by China News Service reporter Xie Yiguan

　　"The Spring Festival pork and fresh vegetables have entered the peak sales season, coupled with the slight rebound in oil prices and the downward transmission of PPI, the year-on-year CPI growth rate will maintain a moderate growth." Tan Zhuo, director of the Macroeconomic Research Institute of China Merchants Bank Research Institute, believes.

　　Liu Xuezhi said that looking forward to the price situation in 2022, it is expected that the CPI will rise slightly, the PPI will fall from a high level, the scissors gap between the PPI and the CPI will significantly converge, and the overall price will remain moderate.

　　In Liu Xuezhi's view, the current pork price is going through a bottoming and rebounding stage, and it is expected that the year-on-year increase in pork prices will increase as a whole in the future, which will play a role in raising food prices.

However, under the continuous agricultural breeding policy, the fluctuation of my country's pig cycle will weaken, and the number of live pigs will remain sufficient. This round of pork price increases will be moderate and will not significantly raise the CPI.

In addition, China's production capacity and supply capacity are strong, and the terminal demand is basically stable, and there will be no situation where the mismatch between supply and demand will lead to large-scale price increases.

Therefore, the CPI will increase in 2022, and the annual increase may be higher than that in 2021, but the overall increase will be lower than 3%, and there will be no inflationary pressure.

(Finish)