SHANGHAI: China’s consumer inflation rate slowed in October, official data showed on Saturday (Nov 9), in a sign that demand remains sluggish in the world’s number two economy.

The slowdown comes as authorities have tried to boost domestic activity as a housing crisis weighs on confidence.

The consumer price index (CPI), a key measure of inflation, rose 0.3% year-on-year in October, down from 0.4% in September, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.

The latest figure was below the 0.4 percent forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

The data was published after Chinese lawmakers revealed on Friday a broad plan to raise local public debt and increase spending.

While many major Western economies faced the threat of high inflation, China instead struggled with low or negative prices.

At the end of 2023, the country sank into deflation for four months, with the sharpest contraction in consumer prices in 14 years in January.

Factory-gate prices also fell 2.9 percent year-on-year in October, compared with a 2.8 percent drop in September, the SNB said on Saturday.

This extends a deflationary period that began in late 2022.