China's January Inflation at 4.9% (That's After They Changed the Weighting of Foods)

From AP:

BANGKOK (AP) -- Asian stock markets were mixed Tuesday as investors digested news that China's inflation rate remained elevated in January following a jump in food prices.

.... China on Tuesday said inflation rose to 4.9 percent in January, driven by a 10.3 percent increase in food costs. The January figure was an increase from December's 4.6 percent rate and close to November's 28-month high of 5.1 percent.

Beijing has hiked interest rates three times since October to cool rapid economic growth and inflation pressures, causing worry among investors who fear such measures could slow Chinese growth -- affecting the United States, Australia and other economies by cutting demand for their exports. But those worries were eased to some degree by January's inflation not being as high as feared.

"The increase was not as big as investors anticipated. This may show some of the measures implemented so far are already working, such as monetary tightening," said Dariusz Kowalczyk of Credit Agricole in Hong Kong.

"Now markets are speculating that further tightening will not be as aggressive as once feared."

"This means China will continue to demand exports from the rest of Asia," Kowalczyk said.

Now that's funny. See no evil, hear no evil.....

From my earlier post:

From Dow Jones:

China has adjusted the weighting of the components making the consumer price index and lowered the weighting of food at the start of the year, the state-run China Securities Journal reported Tuesday...

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