SHENZHEN’S consumer price index (CPI), a major gauge of inflation, increased by 0.5 percent in July compared with June, according to the Shenzhen survey office of the National Bureau of Statistics, the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reported.

The city’s CPI in July rose by 3.4 percent over the same period last year. On a yearly basis, the CPI in the January-July period increased by 2.9 percent.

Wu Jianming, press spokesman for the survey team, said that the growth in CPI was mainly driven by a sustained rise in food and service prices, among which food and nonfood prices increased by 1.2 and 0.3 percent compared with a month earlier, respectively. Service prices rose 1 percent, and the price of consumer goods rose 0.2 percent over the previous month.

In terms of food items, the prices of pork and vegetables continued to go up, while the prices of fresh fruits moved down. The price of pork grew by 7.5 percent in July, up about 4.9 percentage points over the previous month.

Affected by the rising price of pork, the consumption of poultry, eggs and other food saw a marked increase, which resulted in the prices of poultry and eggs going up by 0.9 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively.

Continuous hot weather and rain have also pushed up the price of vegetables by 1.9 percent. July brought various seasonal fruits into the market, resulting in a drop of 2.5 percent in fruit prices.

Regarding nonfood items, transportation and housing rental fees increased, while gasoline, diesel and electricity prices dropped. The summer travel season has driven up the prices of tourism products and air tickets by 11.7 and 22.1 percent, respectively, on a monthly basis.

As July is also graduation season for college students, the rental housing demand in Shenzhen increased, causing rental housing prices to rise 0.5 percent month on month.

On a yearly basis, food and nonfood prices rose by 9.2 percent and 2 percent, respectively. (Zhou Ting)