Wine, spirit prices see lowest growth since June 2011

The government's campaign to crack down on extravagant banquets made a dent in the alcohol and catering industries in February.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the prices of wine and spirits were only up 1.8 percent in February, the lowest growth rate seen since the bureau started to release statistics regularly in June 2011.

Prices were down 0.2 percent month-on-month, the first decline since January 2012.

Since the ban on alcohol in military units and the crackdown on extravagance was announced at the end of last year, several products of the well-known Chinese liquor brands Moutai and Wuliangye have seen their prices go down 30 percent.

Chinese catering companies with annual revenues of 2 million yuan or more have seen their revenues in the first two months drop 3.3 percent year-on-year.

The growth rate of these companies reached 14.1 percent in December last year, while their annual average growth in 2012 was 12.9 percent.

Goldman Sachs' Beijing-based economist Song Yu predicted that the campaign against waste of food will depress food prices in the CPI by 2.5 percentage points and the entire CPI by 0.75 percentage points.

He added that the CPI may drop by 1 percentage point if the frugality policy is implemented continuously.