Mubasher: China’s consumer price inflation picked up steam in September, hitting the fastest pace in almost six years led by soaring pork prices, official data showed on Tuesday.

Consumer price index (CPI), a key tracker of inflation rose by 3% year-on-year last September, up from rate of 2.8% in August, China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.

While analysts polled by Bloomberg expected an inflation at 2.9%, it marked the highest since November 2013.

The pick was led by a food price surge, most specifically pork prices which soared by 69.3% year-on-year last month.

This was mainly attributed to the African swine fever, leading to pork supply disruptions.

This led in turn meat prices to climb, including beef, chicken and duck by as much as 19%.

In separate data, Chinese producer prices extended their decline for the fifth month running, hit by faltering demand and mounting trade tensions with the US.

China’s producer price index (PPI), which gauges costs of goods at the factory gate, fell by 1.2% in September from a year ago, the NBS said.

A slowdown in factory gate inflation points to weakening demand, while a shift to deflation would weigh on corporate earnings and the growth of the Chinese economy.

 By 7:53 am GMT, the Chinese yuan (CNY) weakened against the US dollar, with the USD/CNY pair rising by 0.18% to CNY 7.0803.