China Factory Prices at Post-Covid High Show Xi’s Iran Challenge

China’s sharp move away from deflation last month is a welcome development for Beijing, although it comes on the back of higher energy costs caused by the Iran war.

Producer prices rose 2.8% from a year earlier, the fastest since July 2022 and higher than all estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists, whose median was 1.8%. Consumer inflation unexpectedly climbed to 1.2%.