China’s consumer prices edged higher in March against a year earlier, missing analysts’ forecasts and underlining the challenges for the world’s second-largest economy as it tries to boost domestic demand.
China’s President Xi Jinping is trying to move the economy away from its debt-stricken real estate sector towards high-end manufacturing in a delicate transition that is leading to tensions with the US and Europe.
The country’s consumer price index was 0.1 per cent higher year on year in March, according to official statistics released on Thursday, lower than 0.7 per cent in February and below the 0.4 per cent forecast by a Reuters poll of analysts.