China's factory-gate prices rise in March, ending 3-year slide
China's producer price index (PPI) rose by 1.0% month-on-month and 0.5% year-on-year in March, marking the first year-on-year increase after 41 consecutive months of decline, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Friday, CGTN reports.
The country's PPI, or price of goods at the factory gate, has grown sequentially for six straight months and recorded its largest monthly gain in 48 months in March, up 0.6 percentage points from February's growth.
The increase was driven by a rapid rise in global commodity prices and improved supply-demand dynamics in some domestic sectors, according to NBS statistician Dong Lijuan.
Among major industries, prices in AI-related hardware and electronics, and also green transition sectors stood out. Optical fiber manufacturing prices shot up 76.1% year-on-year; external storage devices and components surged 21.1% and electronic specialized materials jumped 18.7% as China's "AI Plus" initiative expands rapidly alongside a surge in computing power demand.
Meanwhile, green transformation is empowering development, with prices in biomass fuel processing and waste resource utilization rising by 6.1% and 0.9%, respectively.
Data from NBS also showed that the consumer price index (CPI) rose by 1.0% year-on-year and decreased by 0.7% month-on-month in March as consumer demand fell seasonally after the Spring Festival holiday. The core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, increased by 1.1% year-on-year.
The national CPI stayed in moderate year-on-year growth, ticking down to 1.0%. Notably, industrial consumer goods prices jumped 2.2%, a 1.1 percentage point widening from last month, driving about 0.67 percentage points of the total CPI increase.
Specifically, data storage device prices increased by 5.5%, driven by rising raw material costs and strong demand – a sign of robust demand for the digital economy.
Previously, Qazinform reported Chinese eco-friendly technologies might enter Kazakhstan.