UPDATE - China’s annual inflation below expectations at 0.2% in November

UPDATES WITH GOVERNMENT STATEMENT, CHANGES DECK

By Gokhan Ergocun and Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) - China’s annual inflation rate stood at 0.2% in November, falling short of market expectations of 0.5%, the National Bureau of Statistics reported Monday.

Food prices rose by 1.0% year-on-year, while non-food and consumer goods prices remained flat. Service prices increased by 0.4% compared to the previous year.

For the first 11 months of the year, China’s inflation rate averaged 0.3%.

On a month-on-month basis, consumer prices in November dropped by 0.6%.

Meanwhile, the political bureau of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee met Monday to discuss the economic work of 2025.

President Xi Jinping chaired the meeting, which urged implementing a "more proactive fiscal policy and a moderately loose monetary policy next year."

According to the daily South China Morning Post, "moderately loose" language employed by high-level authorities in Beijing marks the "first time" since the global financial crisis in 2009.

The political bureau is a major decision-making body of the CPC.

Emphasizing "vigorously boosting consumption," the meeting said: "It is necessary to enrich and improve the policy toolkit, strengthen unconventional counter-cyclical adjustments, intensify the coordination of various policies, and make the macro regulation more forward-looking, targeted and effective."