Coronavirus spurred inflation in China

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) in China, which is an indicator of inflation in the country, increased by 5.2% year-on-year in February, the National Bureau of Statistics of the PRC reported on March 10. This indicator was in line with market expectations and slightly lower than 5.4% in January. Food prices rose by 21.9% year-on-year over the past month due to the epidemic of the new coronavirus. And their share in China's CPI was about a third. Restrictions on the movement of people and the transportation of goods, as well as the closure of enterprises against the background of the epidemic, have caused severe damage to the food supply market. In the first two months of the year, the CPI in China 5.3% year-on-year and 3.7 percentage points relative to the same period a year earlier.