China factory gate prices jump 5.7 percent as consumer inflation stays low

China's producer prices rose 5.7 percent from a year earlier in October, beating the 5.3 percent forecast in a Reuters poll and rising at the fastest pace since June 2022, while consumer prices rose just 0.7 percent, below the 0.8 percent forecast, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

Why it matters: The gap between factory gate inflation above 5 percent and consumer inflation below 1 percent puts the cost surge on producers rather than households: mining, raw materials and strong external demand are driving the factory index, while falling food prices and weak domestic demand tied to the property market hold consumer prices down.

Data as of National Bureau of Statistics of China releases dated November 9, 2026 (Beijing time), read in full, in Chinese; every official figure is the bureau's own. Updated November 8, 2026, 22:46 Toronto, with CNBC's report of November 8, 2026, read in full via the estate browser route: the Reuters poll forecasts, the June 2022 comparison, the CSI 300 move and the Pinpoint Asset Management comments are CNBC's. Developing item.

Latest: The producer price increase beat expectations and marked a milestone. The 5.7 percent rise compared with a 5.3 percent forecast in a Reuters poll of economists and was the fastest pace of producer price growth since June 2022, a third straight monthly acceleration, CNBC reported. Consumer prices missed in the other direction, rising 0.7 percent against a 0.8 percent forecast and slowing from 0.9 percent in September, with core inflation at 0.8 percent, down from 1.0 percent. The mainland CSI 300 index gained 0.56 percent after the release. Zhang Zhiwei, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, told CNBC the factory price increase was driven by very strong external demand, while domestic demand remained weak because of the property market, which he said showed no clear sign of stabilisation and was weighing on household confidence.

China’s industrial producer prices rose 5.7 percent from a year earlier in October and 0.7 percent from September, the National Bureau of Statistics said, with producer prices for the first ten months of the year up 2.7 percent on average. The increase was concentrated upstream: mining prices rose 27.9 percent from a year earlier, raw material prices 11.6 percent and processing prices 3.5 percent, while prices for consumer goods leaving factories fell 0.1 percent. Coal mining prices rose 36.6 percent from a year earlier, oil and gas extraction 35.0 percent and fuel processing 29.9 percent, and the prices producers pay for inputs rose faster still, up 7.9 percent from a year earlier, led by fuel and power at 18.6 percent.

Consumer prices told a different story. The consumer price index rose 0.7 percent from a year earlier and was unchanged on the month, as food prices fell 2.9 percent from a year earlier, with fresh vegetables down 16.9 percent and pork down 8.6 percent. Prices excluding food and energy rose 0.8 percent from a year earlier, and the main upward pressure came from transport fuel, up 20.2 percent from a year earlier, inside a transport and communication category up 5.5 percent.

China factory gate prices jump 5.7 percent as consumer inflation stays low

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