China's Monthly Inflation Rises To 7.1%

Severe Winter Storms, Food Shortages Drive Price Increases, Highest Inflation In A Decade

(AP)  China's inflation accelerated in January to 7.1 percent - its rate highest in more than a decade - amid snowstorms that fueled a spike in food costs, according to data reported Tuesday.

The sharp rise in consumer prices was driven by an 18.2 percent increase in food costs from the same period a year ago, the National Bureau of Statistics reported on its Web site.

That came despite government efforts to ease shortages of pork, grain and other goods that is blamed for a six-month-old spike in food prices that has driven inflation to decade-high rates.

January's increase exceeded November's 6.9 percent rate, which was the highest in 11 years.

Chinese leaders have tried to increase food supplies with steps including paying farmers to raise more pigs.

But economists have raised their inflation forecasts for the first half of 2008 after freak snowstorms battered China's south, killing millions of farm animals and wrecking crops.

Chinese leaders are especially worried about the political impact of rapidly rising food costs, which hit the country's poor majority hard.

So far, the rise appears to be confined to food, according to the data reported Tuesday. They showed prices for non-food items up only 1.5 percent in January over the same month last year.

But Chinese leaders worry that chronic high increases in food costs will spread to other parts of the economy.

[keithle1]

Like the country''s leaders give a pig''s eyeball about the poor. Don''t make me laugh.

[twocanpete]

I repeat, a handfull of old men can not out perform the market. I give this basket case twelve months at best.

twocanpete

[jerkeedoodle]

Nice to know we''re not alone.

[shanev137]

Actually, nobody in the world is buying our debt anymore, since the value of the dollar went straight into the toilet and our interest rates are nearing record lows.

If you lived in a country with a strong currency and a solid economy, why would you ever buy worthless US Treasury Bonds that have a low rate of return?

[king77shaw]

they aren''t stashing it - they are propping up our economy with it .. the USA borrows 2 billion dollars per DAY from those "commie dictators" because America now runs on debt .. we don''t produce anything here anymore -- we''ve been left with a hollowed economy ... what the capitalist elites have done to this country is anti-American - profit trumps country in the New World Order..