China

China’s consumer inflation accelerated in December to the fastest pace in nearly three years as spending picked up ahead of the New Year holiday, while factory-gate deflation remained entrenched, signaling that underlying demand stayed weak. Consumer prices rose 0.8% from a year earlier, their highest level since February 2023, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics on Friday. The improvement followed a 0.7% climb in November and matched the economists’ expectations in a Reuters poll. The rebound in consumer prices was largely driven by fresh vegetables, which rose 18.2% from a year earlier due to supply shortages during the cold winter. Among other food items, pork prices fell 14.6%. Core inflation, which excludes volatile prices of food and energy, was up ...

China’s Ministry of Finance, alongside several other of the country’s ministries, central bank, and regulators, announced the release of its new “Corporate Sustainable Disclosure Standard No. 1 – Climate (Trial),” a new standard, aligned with the IFRS Foundation’s climate reporting standard, aimed at enabling companies to report on climate-related risks, opportunities and impacts, and to support China’s green development goals. While the new standard is being positioned by the Ministry of Finance as a trial document, and applied initially as voluntary, the ministry said that it will expand its application over time to more companies and eventually to the implementation of mandatory climate-related disclosures. According to the ministry, the new trial climate reporting standa...