On November 22, the Ministry of Commerce released statistics that the price of edible agricultural products (000061) in my country has fallen for six consecutive weeks, and the retail price of eggs has been in a downward trend for 8 consecutive weeks.

The continuous decline in food prices means that the inflationary inflection point that began in August this year has been solidly built. The well-known economist Zhang Shuguang predicts that the increase in consumer prices in the fourth quarter of this year may fall further, but the increase is unlikely to fall below 4%.

Food Prices Drop for Six Weeks

Since mid-October, the price of edible agricultural products in China has dropped six times in a row.

In the itemized data released by the Ministry of Commerce yesterday, eggs, aquatic products, and meat all declined to varying degrees. Eggs have fallen 4 per cent in the last eight weeks, while pork prices fell 1.7 per cent again last week, down nearly 10 per cent since mid-September.

Although the average wholesale price of 18 vegetables rose by 1.5 per cent month-on-month, this was more due to seasonal factors, with traditional winter vegetables such as Chinese cabbage, onion and cabbage still falling considerably, by 12.6 per cent, 3.5 per cent and 3.4 per cent respectively.

In addition to data from the Ministry of Commerce, the "National Agricultural Product Wholesale Price Index" monitored daily by the Ministry of Agriculture can also confirm that the current food prices are decreasing. From November 31 to yesterday (November 22), the index has fallen continuously from 186.4 to 183.6. The wholesale price index of "vegetable basket" products also fell by 3.5.

Liu Yuhui, director of the China Economic Evaluation Center, said that the inflationary index should be said to be relatively established during the year. The next step is likely to return to the 4.5 per cent level by the end of the year with the impact of the base.

He also said that this trend should be likely to be maintained next year, and it may see about 3% by the middle of next year.

The World Bank report released yesterday also raised China's economic growth this year by 0.1 percentage points, from 9 per cent to 9.1 per cent. The report also said that as China's price rise slows, the government will have more room for policy adjustment.

Beijing Vegetable Prices Far Lower Last Year

In addition to the monitoring data of the two ministries, there are many more intuitive examples to show the extent of the current ebb of inflation, such as the price of vegetables in Beijing.

According to the monitoring results of vegetable prices by the Shuitun Market Information Office, the weighted average price of vegetables in the market last week was 1.83 yuan/kg, a year-on-year decrease of 26.21.

The monitoring data of Shuitun market show that the prices of eight kinds of vegetables are lower than the same period last year, with an average drop of 25.2. Among them, cabbage has the largest decline, reaching 68.2 percent; the total amount of eight vegetables on the market increased by 109000kg, or 11.8 percent, and potatoes have the largest increase, reaching 56000kg.

Lao Li, a vegetable dealer in Hebei, told the Daily Economic News that the price of Chinese cabbage in Beijing's Xinfadi Agricultural products Market last year could reach more than 60 cents per jin, and it was still a wholesale price, while the retail price this year was less than 30 cents.

The retreat of price increases is also the consolidation of consumer confidence.

The China Consumer Confidence Index for the third quarter of 2011 released by Nielsen yesterday showed that the overall level of consumer confidence in China remained stable at 104 points. Although it is 1 point lower than the 105 of the previous quarter, it is still above the optimistic line. The global consumer confidence index in the third quarter of 2011 was 88 points, a new low in the past seven quarters.