Consumer & Producer Prices (Feb.)

Factory gate prices stopped falling last month, as China’s reopening helped to put a floor under global commodity prices. Meanwhile, consumer price inflation dropped back sharply due to a fall in food prices and some residual seasonality. Looking through this volatility, the big picture is still that China’s reopening is nudging up core inflation. But the impact has so far been marginal and, while we expect a bigger impact from reopening before long, we doubt it will push up inflation as much as it did in other economies.