For more on October’s CPI numbers, CCTV was joined in the studio by Wu Haojun.

Q1: Can you tell us more about how consumer prices have changed in October? Which items contributed most to the slow-down in CPI inflation?

A: A lot of the attention is being focused on food prices, since the cost of non-food items has remained largely flat, as has been the case for the past few months. Non-food items saw a point 2 percent month-on-month increase in October. Among them, the cost of residence, which has been making the headlines a lot recently, increased a mere point 1 percent from September. Meanwhile, as you can see, the prices of medical & health products, and transportation & telecommunication services dropped by point 1 and point 3 percent respectively.

Now let’s turn to what really made the difference. Prices for food items decreased by point 2 percent from September. Among them, fresh vegetables and egg prices saw the largest decline, at 3.4 and 3.8% respectively, while meat products dipped by point 6 percent. But remember, all these are month-on-month figures, just to give you a sense of how prices have really risen this year, today people are paying about a 12 percent premium on food compared to last year.

Q2: We’ve seen rising inflation pretty much throughout the year, but now it seems we are finally seeing some signs of relief. Could this be a turning point?

A: Up till September this year, CPI had been rising above 6 percent for four consecutive months. According to Li Daokui, the director of the Center for China in the World Economy at Tsinghua University, food items could account for more than 60 percent of the inflationary pressure China’s facing. Now it seems this pressure has finally started to ease.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, close to 80% of food products have seen either no rise or a moderate drop in price in October. And according to Peng Sen, vice minister of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, we can look forward to a CPI increase of less than 5% for the last two months of the year.