On April 15th, the Changzhou Municipal Price Bureau and the Changzhou Investigation Team of the National Statistics Bureau held a joint press conference on the local CPI.

In the first quarter of 2016, the local CPI rose by 2.7%, up by 0.6% in comparison to the same period in 2015. And this growth rate is 0.6% higher than the national average and 0.3% higher than the provincial average.

Among eight major categories of goods and services, two saw a price decrease and six had a price increase. CPI for food & cigarettes & wines, clothing, housing, daily consumer goods & services, health care & individual goods, and other goods & services grew by 4.5%, 3.6%, 2.9%, 2.6%, 13% and 21% respectively. In contrast, CPI for transportation & telecommunications and educational & cultural & entertainment goods and services fell by 2.7% and 1.1% respectively.

Also in the first quarter, the two main components of the Changzhou Non-staple Food Index, the Wholesale Price Index of Ling Jiatang Grocery Market and the Changzhou Non-staple Food Retail Price Index, stood at 116.26 and 113.27, up by 16.26% and 13.27% respectively over the same period in 2015. Among the five main components of the Changzhou Non-staple Food Retail Price Index, four saw a price rise while one had a price drop. CPI for meat & poultry, bean products, fishery products and vegetables increases by 13.14%, 1.25%, 28.26% and 4.31% respectively. Furthermore, price hikes of meat & poultry and vegetables contributed to 13.04% of the total first quarter CPI growth.

In addition, non-staple food prices in Changzhou’s five districts and one county city all increased. The price increases in Jintan District, Wujin District, Zhonglou District, Liyang City, Tianning District, and Xinbei District stood at 16.29%, 14.79%, 13.53%, 12.94%, 12.01% and 11.20% respectively.