In the past 4 weeks, vegetable prices have accelerated food prices or blocked the CPI fallback in September

This weekend will usher in the National Day, and the third quarter will also end. However, the “heat” of the CPI seems to remain cool, and the market expects that the data for September will remain high.

“At present, vegetable prices are still not cheap. Pork has returned to 16 yuan a pound. After the Mid-Autumn Festival, the price dropped a bit and it went up again.” Aunt Lee, who is buying vegetables in Beijing’s Po’anli Market, told "Daily Economic News" reporter.

Market analysts said that with the deepening of the autumn, many vegetable product production seasons have passed, the vegetable market supply will be reduced, prices may rise further.

Judging from the forecasts given by various agencies, it is not expected that the CPI in September will be less than 6%, but there will be disagreements on whether it will exceed the 6.2% in August. Some institutions, including the Industrial Bank [12.49 1.22% shares bar research report] and China International Capital Corporation, believe that September CPI will likely reach 6.2% to 6.3%. September Food Week has risen steadily. Like previous months, the reason why September's CPI is not optimistic and obvious is still the rise in food prices.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce, the average wholesale price of 18 kinds of vegetables rose 1.5% from the previous week from August 29 to September 4. It rose by 2.6% from September 5 to September 11 and rose from September 12 to September 18. 3.7%; up 4.2% from September 19 to 25, and the chain growth has gradually expanded. Among them, the prices of tomatoes, cabbage, and cabbage rose by double digits, rising by 13.6%, 12.7%, and 10% respectively.

In addition to vegetables, the retail price of grain and oil also rose slightly last week. Among them, peanut oil, rapeseed oil and soybean oil rose by 0.3%, 0.2% and 0.2% respectively; rice and flour rose by 0.3% and 0.2% respectively; retail price of eggs rose by 0.1%. . The average wholesale price of 8 kinds of aquatic products also rebounded slightly.

The trend of meat prices was slightly optimistic. In addition to the 0.6% drop in pork prices, other gains also weakened. However, some analysts have pointed out that beef and mutton consumption began to enter the peak season, and pork consumption was also relatively prosperous, mainly due to the “posted autumn leaves” in the northern region. In September, the strong demand will make it difficult to stop the price hike in food prices.

“Overall, the Ministry of Agriculture’s price rose by 1.7% from the August average in the first four weeks of September, and the food price rose by 1.9% from the August average in the first three weeks of the Ministry of Commerce. The Bureau of Statistics’ average price of food in August compared with the average in August This was a 2.2% increase from the previous month, and it is expected that food prices in the CPI in September will increase by 1% month-on-month and 13.2% year-on-year, said Li Xunlei, chief economist of Guotai Junan.

In addition, the pace of non-food price increases has not seen a slowdown. Taking rent as an example, the data released by Beijing Centaline Property shows that in September, the rental index of middle-to-high-end residential buildings in Beijing was 145.91, and the average rent per unit was 53.35 yuan/sqm/month, a month-on-month increase of 0.57% and a year-on-year increase of 3.80%. September CPI will remain at a high level Since July, when the CPI rose 6.5% year-on-year, it is generally believed that the CPI increase from August to December will gradually decline. However, rising prices in September made previous judgments subject to doubt. Many agencies believe that the September CPI will exceed the 6.2% level in August.

Industrial Bank chief economist Lu political commissar told the "Daily Economic News" reporter, in August food prices rose around the ring may be 1.2%, non-food prices rose about 0.4%, and then calculated in September CPI rose by 0.5% Between 0.8% and a median of 0.65%. He believes that since September's carryover factor is expected to fall by 0.5 to 0.6 percentage point compared with the previous month, it is expected that the year-on-year increase in September CPI will fall within the range of 6.2% to 6.4%, with a median value of 6.3%, compared with the previous month. Up 0.1 percentage points.

CICC's judgment is exactly the same as that of the Lu political commissar. The company’s report also stated that September’s year-over-year increase in CPI may have risen to 6.2% to 6.4%.

The report said that the increase in food prices during the first three weeks of September was seasonal, which mainly reflected the pulling effect of the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day on the demand for food. It is expected that the price of food will hardly see a significant drop before the end of September, and the increase may be as high as 1.5% to 2.0%.

However, Li Xunlei still insists that the year-on-year increase in CPI in September was about 6%, of which food prices rose by 13.2% year-on-year, and non-food prices rose by 2.9% year-on-year. He said that prices in July may have reached the peak of the year, and the downward trend of inflation in the future is basically confirmed. In the short term, inflation will slow down more slowly than expected. The September CPI, which is still at a high of 6%, is likely to fall to 5.4% in October, and is expected to fall further to below 5% after November.

“Under the long-term bullish labor costs, high international commodity prices, the long-term mechanism for government regulation to be improved, and domestic inflation expectations are still strong, the rate of price decline during the year may be limited,” said Tang Jianwei, an analyst at BOCOM. Currently, the inflation pressure is reduced mainly because the carryover factor has fallen. The YoY increase in CPI for the period from November to December may still be around 4%, and the average CPI increase for the whole year is expected to be 5.2%.