On Jan 19, it was learned at the press conference on economic situation that in 2017 Changzhou’s consumer price index (CPI) went up by 1.9% year-on-year. The increase was 0.3 percentage points higher than the national average and 0.2 percentage points higher than the provincial average.

The prices of the 8 major spending categories rose altogether. Among them, the prices of household goods and services climbed 3.4%, the prices of transportation and communications rose 3.3%, the prices of health care increased by 2.6%, the prices of housing grew by 2.0%, the prices of education and entertainment went up by 1.7%, the prices of other goods and services rose 1.5%, the prices of food, tobacco and alcohol increased by 1.0%, and the prices of apparel grew by 1.0%.

However, the food wholesale and retail price indexes were 98.64 and 97.66 respectively in 2017, down by 1.36% and 2.34% respectively year-on-year.