China’s Below-Target Inflation Gives Room for More Policy Easing

China’s consumer inflation remained below the government’s goal in July and factory-gate deflation persisted, suggesting policy makers still have room for monetary easing amid a lack of pressure on prices.

The consumer price index rose 2.3 percent from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said in Beijing yesterday, the same pace as in June and also the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. Factory-gate prices fell 0.9 percent, matching projections and extending the longest stretch of declines since 1999.