China's Sept inflation may fall below 2%

BEIJING -- An upcoming release of national economic statistics is likely to show that China's inflation fell below 2 percent in September on easing vegetable prices, Chinese analysts have predicted.

Both Lu Zhengwei, chief economist at the Industrial Bank, and Li Huiyong, an analyst at Shenyin & Wanguo Securities, have forecast that the consumer price index, a major gauge of inflation, will be shown to have grown by 1.9 percent year-on-year in September.

The rate, which will be confirmed when CPI data for September is released on Oct 9, will be lower than the 2-percent growth seen in August, which rebounded from a 30-month low of 1.8 percent in July.

The drop is attributable to falling agricultural produce prices since the beginning of the month, which ended an enduring rebound in August due to extreme weather conditions.

Data from the Ministry of Agriculture showed that the wholesale price index of farm produce has declined to 191.44 points as of Sept 27, down 11.89 percent from the end of August.

However, many in the market are expecting renewed inflation pressure after major economies, including the United States and Japan, recently issued stimulus measures to shore up growth.

Attention should be paid to the inflation pressure caused by imported factors, improving investment demand and rebounds in pork prices, said Lian Ping, chief economist at the Bank of Communications.

Although the new stimuli will help stabilize market expectation and drive the global recovery, they will also push up prices for major global commodities and devalue the US dollar, Lian said.

Most institutions predicted that the full-year CPI for 2012 is likely to fall under the 4-percent government target set earlier this year.

A report released by the National Center for Economic Research at Tsinghua University projected the CPI to grow 2.9 percent for the first three quarters of 2012 and 2.8 percent for the whole year. The Bank of China forecast a 2.7-percent growth for 2012.

The US Fed said that it will buy $40 billion in mortgage securities each month until the economy improves. The Bank of Japan announced that it will expand its asset purchase and loan program by 10 trillion yen (about $124 billion) to boost growth.