China's consumer inflation rises 0.2% in December

A supermarket in Xingtai, north China's Hebei Province, January 6, 2021. /CFP

China's consumer price index (CPI), a key gauge of retail inflation, rose 0.2 percent in December from a year earlier due to food price increases and rising demand amid festivals, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Monday.

The figure reversed the negative territory of minus 0.5 percent in November, which was the first decline since 2009.

A Reuters poll expected the index to rise 0.1 percent. And 14 Chinese institutions collected by the Wind Information database also showed an average forecast of 0.1 percent for December's CPI.