China’s inflation falls as food prices cool

BEIJING (AP) ― China’s stubbornly high inflation fell in October, giving Beijing room to stimulate the world’s No. 2 economy amid weak U.S. and European growth.

Consumer prices rose 5.5 percent from a year earlier, down from September’s 6.1 percent, government figures showed Wednesday. Politically volatile food costs rose 11.9 percent but that was down from the previous month’s 13.4 percent.

The decline gives China’s leaders the leeway to reverse interest rate hikes and other curbs imposed to cool an overheated economy. Those controls squeezed entrepreneurs and fed fears the economy might slow too abruptly at a time when hopes are pinned on relatively robust China to prop up global growth.

Inflation is politically dangerous for the ruling communists because it erodes economic gains that underpin their claim to power. Incomes are rising but a yawning gap between rich and poor means gains are unevenly distributed and food costs are especially sensitive in a society where poor families spend up to half their incomes on food.

“Over the past year they had a single target ― control inflation. But now that inflation is fading, they are going to focus on economic growth,” said Capital Economics analyst Qinwei Wang.

Beijing has hiked interest rates repeatedly and imposed investment curbs to cool growth that hit 10.3 percent last year. But as those measures gain traction, China faces the dual threats of plunging consumer demand in its key U.S. and European export markets and a cooling real estate market, a key driver of growth.

Most analysts expect China to achieve a “soft landing” and avoid an abrupt downturn.

China’s economic growth slowed to 9.1 percent in the three months ended September, down from the previous quarter’s 9.5 percent. The International Monetary Fund is forecasting 9.5 percent growth for the full year.

“Inflation is clearly abating,” said IMF managing director Christine Lagarde during a visit Wednesday to Beijing. “Monetary tightening can ease off a little bit.”

“Fundamentally, China is on the right path,” Lagarde said.

Inflation peaked at a 37-month high of 6.5 percent in July, driven by sharp rises in food costs caused by strong demand and summer flooding that damaged crops. Analysts expect inflation to ease further as the autumn harvest comes in, though the government says it will overshoot the official target of 4 percent for the year.

In a positive sign for consumers, October wholesale inflation fell to 5 percent from September’s 6.5 percent, indicating retailers will face less pressure to pass on higher prices.

Entrepreneurs who produce the bulk of China’s new jobs and economic activity have been battered by government curbs on bank lending and a drop in export demand. Thousands have been driven into bankruptcy and others have laid off workers, especially in the export-driven southeast, raising the specter of social tensions.

Export orders signed by Western buyers at the recently completed Canton Fair, a barometer of future demand, fell 20 to 25 percent compared with the fair’s spring session, according to Chinese news reports.

“Weakness in the export sector will be the main hindrance to economic growth in the coming quarters,” said Jing Ulrich, JP Morgan’s chairwoman for China equities, in a report.

Beijing has promised more bank lending to help small and private companies. But it says credit and investment curbs imposed to cool a real estate boom that has driven up housing costs will stay in place.

The credit clampdown has helped to slow the rise in housing costs but has hurt the real estate and construction industries, which account for about 10 percent of China’s economic output. A fall in new building has cut demand for steel, cement and other raw materials, which will hurt foreign commodity suppliers such as Australia.

“There will not be the slightest wavering in the property-tightening moves. Our target is for prices to return to reasonable levels,” Premier Wen Jiabao, the country’s top economic official, said last weekend, according to Chinese media.