Virus outbreak pushes up China's inflation to highest level in 8 years

TOKYO - China's consumer prices rose at their fastest pace in over eight years in January, as uncertainties about the outbreak of a new pneumonia-causing coronavirus prompted people to stock up on daily necessities, the government said Monday.

A pork shortage stemming from a yearlong African swine fever epidemic also contributed to the jump in inflation, official data showed. The country's consumer price index spiked 5.4 percent last month from a year earlier, the highest increase since October 2011.

Pork prices more than doubled from the same month last year, while vegetable prices climbed 17 percent during the same period.

The new coronavirus, believed to have originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, has so far infected over 40,000 people and killed more than 900 in the nation. The country's government has called on people to avoid crowds to reduce the risk of catching or spreading the virus.

As logistics services are impacted by efforts to prevent the spread of the new virus, a short supply of essentials is likely to drive up inflation further, which could deal a heavy blow to private spending and investment at home, analysts say.

China's economy, the second-largest in the world, has already faced downward pressure against the backdrop of a tit-for-tat tariff trade war with the United States.

In 2019, the Chinese economy grew at its worst pace in 29 years, expanding 6.1 percent from a year earlier, with a slowdown in the nation's exports weighing on domestic demand.