China’s wholesale prices index was up 0.2 points on July 12, 2024 above that of a day earlier. This is even as food prices increased by 0.2% year-on-year (y-o-y) in June against expectations of 0.4% to fight looming deflation.
The data came up on the government’s publication of the “200 Wholesale Price Index of Agricultural Products.”
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the daily rise owed to price increases in 28 vegetables and 6 fruits.
Wholesale Prices of veggies up daily but down yearly
The average price for some 28 vegetables was 4.79 yuan ($0.66) per kg on the 12th, an increase by 0.4% from the 11th.
Interestingly, this is a soft rise as fresh vegetable prices in China have been on the brink of deflation for sometime. In the June 2024 report, the government revealed a 7.3% yearly fall in the wholesale prices of fresh veggies.
This decrease helped drag the overall consumer prices for June, which increased by only 0.2% against May’s increase of 0.3%. The government had hoped that prices would hike by at least 0.4% to keep the economy strong.
Fruits Retreat Yearly, gain daily
A similar amplification applied to some six fruits, whose weighted average was 7.2 yuan ($0.99) a kg on July 12, a 1.5% daily increase.
The marginal rise however does not mean fruits are pricey in China at the moment. In June 2024, fruit prices actually tumbled by 8.7% y-o-y, meaning they are still accessible into July.
Key rises and falls in wholesale prices
The two biggest daily rises on the 12th came from cucumbers by 3.2% and tomatoes by 2.9%. In the top 5 were pineapples and pears, up by 2.8% apiece, and cauliflower, up by 2.7%.
Quite a few foods registered daily price decreases, however, the biggest being pumpkins, down 5.1%. Watermelon, wax gourd and mushroom prices were also down 1.1% each while beans were down by 0.3%.
All foods down 2.1% y-o-y
In the June 2023-24 period, prices of food fell by 2.1% and added to the slow growth in consumer prices.
In comparison, the yearly decline for May 2024 was 2% when most foods fell by manageable percentages. While vegetable prices scaled down by 7.3% in June, they had only lost by 2.3% in May. Fruit prices, too, shed 8.7% in June against 6.7% in May.
The world’s second largest economy is keen to reboot post-Covid 19 consumer spending slowdown. To achieve this, China wants to boost producer prices, which in June “improved” by falling by 0.8% y-o-y against May’s bigger fall of 1.4%.
In summary, China’s wholesale prices index is lately showing daily increases despite a yearly spending retraction. And as the statistics below show, spending is king in a populous consumer country as China.
China Food Spending Statistics
Consumption indicators for China in 2024 show that consumer spending will reach $7.23 trillion. Food and non-alcoholic drink spending will reach $970 per capita in 2024 while that of alcohol will hit $222.50. From an historical perspective, the 2024 food spending forecast is a rise from 2022’s spending at $966 per person per year. In 2022, China’s consumer expenditure per capita amounted to $4,805, which means food formed 20.1% of this spending. Comparatively, Israel, at the top of global food expenditure, spent $2,402 per capita on food in 2022.
Which foods do the Chinese spend most on?
Most Chinese buy unprocessed grains and beans, whose consumption as a measure of spending reached 136.8 kg per person per year in 2022. Vegetables and edible mushrooms followed at 108.2 kg per capita while meat products made 34.6 kg per capita. Sugar ranked last at 1.2 kg per capita in 2022.
Do the Chinese buy food online?
Since the 2000s, China has gone on from being an entirely physical location consumer market to a fresh food e-commerce giant. In 2021, 70 million citizens bought their food from major online stores such as Alibaba and Tmall. That year, all online fresh food purchases reached 4.9 trillion yuan ($674.73 billion).