China Inflation Stays Subdued

China’s inflation stayed subdued in January while factory-gate prices extended the longest drop since the 1990s, in a sign of moderating demand in the world’s second-largest economy.

The consumer price index rose 2.5 percent from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said today in Beijing, the same pace as in December. The producer-price index fell 1.6 percent. China’s economic data are distorted in January and February by the shifting timing of the week-long Lunar New Year holiday, which began on Jan. 31 this year.