A vender puts vegetables into piles at a market in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province prepares to open. After the snowstorm hit the city this week, vegetable prices doubled.
The heavy snow that recently hit many areas across China contributed to price hikes of farm products and raw materials, but the rise is not expected to affect inflation, analysts said Tuesday.
A blizzard has swept across the northern regions since November 9 and is now spreading to the south. Food prices in 36 large- and medium-sized cities have begun to rise, and raw materials prices are also on the upswing, according to data released by the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) Tuesday.
Vegetables prices were generally up substantially, as the massive snowstorm impacted transportation, thus making vegetables scarce, said MOFCOM.
Among 57 major edible agriculture products, 35 reported price hikes, and 50 of the 112 main raw materials saw prices rising.
Price hikes brought on by the bad weather are only expected to affect certain areas over a set period of time. The consumer price index (CPI) and producer price index (PPI) are not likely to rise considerably, said Li Kang, vice president at Xiangcai Securities.
The heavy snow that hit many southern areas and northwestern areas is estimated to continue until Friday. Temperature in northern areas will rise Saturday and gradually rebound in southern regions beginning Sunday, He Lifu, chief weather forecaster at the National Meteorological Center of China Meteorological Administration, said Monday.
Major food products and raw materials, though weighing on the CPI and PPI, will not substantially change the two indices, while the economic recovery and investment growth play a key role in pulling them out of the negative territory, said Zhang Xiaojing, director of the macro-economy department of the Institute of Economics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
The snowstorm will not affect the economic recovery, both Zhang and Li from Xiang-cai Securities stated.
Both CPI and PPI are very likely to return to the positive territory by the end of the year, Li predicted. But he said this is more due to the low base readings for the last two months of last year than the recent weather-related price jumps.
责任编辑：sealion1986
