On October 15th, Dong Lijuan, Chief Statistician of the Urban Survey Division of the National Bureau of Statistics, provided an interpretation of the September 2025 CPI and PPI data. In September 2025, the core CPI year-over-year growth continued to expand, while the PPI year-over-year decline continued to narrow.

In September, consumer markets operated generally stable. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.1% month-over-month and declined 0.3% year-over-year. The core CPI, excluding food and energy prices, increased 1.0% year-over-year, marking the fifth consecutive month of expansion. With the deepening construction of a unified national market and continuous optimization of market competition order, the Producer Price Index (PPI) remained flat month-over-month and declined 2.3% year-over-year, with the decline narrowing by 0.6 percentage points from the previous month.

**September 2025 Core CPI Year-over-Year Growth Continues to Expand, PPI Year-over-Year Decline Continues to Narrow**

**1. CPI Shifted from Flat to Rising Month-over-Month, Core CPI Year-over-Year Growth Returned to 1%**

CPI month-over-month showed recovery, shifting from flat in the previous month to a 0.1% increase. Food prices rose 0.7% month-over-month, with the increase expanding by 0.2 percentage points from the previous month, contributing approximately 0.13 percentage points to the CPI month-over-month increase.

Among food items, fresh vegetables, eggs, fresh fruits, mutton, and beef prices all showed seasonal increases, ranging from 0.9% to 6.1%. Pork and aquatic products maintained sufficient supply, with prices declining 0.7% and 1.8% respectively.

Industrial consumer goods prices excluding energy rose 0.5%, contributing approximately 0.12 percentage points to the CPI month-over-month increase. Gold jewelry prices increased 6.5% due to rising international gold prices. Clothing prices rose 0.8% with new autumn collections. Entertainment durable goods, household appliances, and household daily necessities prices increased by 0.9%, 0.6%, and 0.6% respectively.

Due to declining service and energy prices, the CPI month-over-month increase was slightly below seasonal levels. Service prices fell 0.3%, contributing approximately 0.12 percentage points to the CPI month-over-month decline. Affected by the end of summer vacation and the Mid-Autumn Festival's different timing compared to previous years, airfares, hotel accommodation, and tourism prices declined 13.8%, 7.4%, and 6.1% respectively, collectively contributing approximately 0.17 percentage points to the CPI month-over-month decline.

Energy prices dropped 0.8%, with domestic gasoline prices falling 1.7% due to international oil price fluctuations.

CPI year-over-year declined 0.3%, with the decline narrowing by 0.1 percentage points from the previous month. The year-over-year CPI decline was mainly due to carryover effects. Of the -0.3% year-over-year CPI change this month, carryover effects contributed approximately -0.8 percentage points, while new price changes this year contributed approximately 0.5 percentage points.

By category, food and energy prices declined. Food prices fell 4.4%, with the decline expanding by 0.1 percentage points from the previous month, contributing approximately 0.83 percentage points to the CPI year-over-year decline and serving as the main factor. Among food items, pork, fresh vegetables, eggs, and fresh fruits prices declined 17.0%, 13.7%, 13.5%, and 4.2% respectively, collectively contributing approximately 0.78 percentage points to the CPI year-over-year decline. Beef and mutton prices rose 4.6% and 0.8% respectively, with mutton prices turning positive for the first time after 44 consecutive months of decline.

Energy prices declined 2.7%, contributing approximately 0.20 percentage points to the CPI year-over-year decline.

The core CPI excluding food and energy prices rose 1.0% year-over-year, marking the fifth consecutive month of expansion and the first time in 19 months that growth returned to 1%. Industrial consumer goods prices excluding energy rose 1.8%, marking the fifth consecutive month of expansion. Among industrial consumer goods, gold and platinum jewelry prices rose 42.1% and 33.6% respectively. Household appliances, household daily necessities, and communication equipment prices rose 5.5%, 3.2%, and 1.5% respectively, all showing expanding increases.

Service prices rose 0.6%, maintaining relative stability. Medical services and household services prices rose 1.9% and 1.6% respectively, while hotel accommodation and airfare prices declined 1.5% and 1.7% respectively.

**2. PPI Remained Flat Month-over-Month, Year-over-Year Decline Continues to Narrow**

PPI remained flat month-over-month for two consecutive months. The main characteristics of this month's PPI month-over-month performance included:

First, improved supply-demand structure drove significant price stabilization in some industries. Coal processing prices rose 3.8% month-over-month, coal mining and washing industry prices increased 2.5%, and ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industry prices rose 0.2%, all increasing for two consecutive months. Photovoltaic equipment and component manufacturing prices shifted from a 0.2% decline last month to a 0.8% increase. Non-metallic mineral products and lithium-ion battery manufacturing prices declined 0.4% and 0.2% respectively, with declines narrowing by 0.6 and 0.3 percentage points respectively.

Second, input factors affected domestic petroleum-related industry prices month-over-month. Declining international oil prices drove domestic petroleum-related industry prices lower month-over-month. Oil extraction prices fell 2.7%, refined petroleum products manufacturing prices declined 1.5%, organic chemical raw materials manufacturing prices dropped 0.6%, and chemical fiber manufacturing prices fell 0.2%.

PPI declined 2.3% year-over-year, with the decline narrowing by 0.6 percentage points from the previous month. Beyond the impact of lower comparative base figures from the previous year, the continued effects of various macroeconomic policies showed positive changes in some industries.

First, the deepening construction of a unified national market drove narrowing year-over-year price declines in related industries. Capacity governance achievements became evident in some industries, market competition order continued to optimize, and year-over-year price declines narrowed. Coal processing, ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing, coal mining and washing, photovoltaic equipment and component manufacturing, battery manufacturing, and non-metallic mineral products industry price declines narrowed by 8.3, 3.4, 3.0, 2.4, 0.5, and 0.4 percentage points respectively compared to the previous month. These six industries' drag on PPI year-over-year performance decreased by approximately 0.34 percentage points compared to the previous month.

Second, industrial structure upgrading and consumption potential release drove related industry prices to rise year-over-year. Accelerated construction of a modern industrial system, favorable high-end, intelligent, and green manufacturing development, and steadily expanding market demand led to aircraft manufacturing prices rising 1.4% year-over-year, electronic specialty materials manufacturing prices increasing 1.2%, waste resource comprehensive utilization industry prices rising 0.9%, and wearable smart device manufacturing prices increasing 0.1%.

The continued effects of consumption-boosting policies, along with the release of quality-oriented and upgrade-type consumption demand, led to craft and ceremonial goods manufacturing prices rising 14.7%, sports ball manufacturing prices increasing 4.0%, and nutritional food manufacturing prices rising 1.8%.