Rising prices pressure shoppers

Consumers and small businesses are feeling to pinch from the unexpectedly large rise in retail price inflation in September and hoping price rises will become moderate for the rest of the year, as the prices for most industrial goods have remained stable.

The consumer price index rose 3.1 percent year-on-year in September, a seven-month high, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday.

Food prices, which increased 6.1 percent in September, contributed 1.94 percentage points to the overall inflation figure.

Vegetable prices rose 18.9 percent, while meat product prices rose 6.6 percent, down from a 7.2-percent increase in August.

Li Da, the owner of a chain bakery in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, already saw the impact of higher prices when he did the monthly shopping for his stores at the end of September.

"The prices of eggs, flour and milk have risen a bit in the past three months, while vegetables turned out to be more expensive, so I had to squeeze the budget for ingredients to make even a limited profit," said Li. He added that price fluctuations are a seasonal phenomenon, especially during frequent holidays in the autumn, which is fine as things will probably stabilize in the remainder of the year.

Meanwhile, the producer price index fell 1.3 percent in September from a year earlier, compared with a 1.6-percent drop in August, the NBS said.

The index, which measures inflation at the wholesale level, has been in negative territory for 19 consecutive months.