Prices, supplies of goods to stay stable over holidays

China is capable of ensuring stable supplies and prices of key commodities during the coming New Year and Spring Festival holidays, the country's top economic regulator said on Thursday.

Meng Wei, a spokeswoman with the National Development and Reform Commission, said there will be sufficient supplies of commodities "essential for livelihood" during the holidays, and their prices will remain stable.

In the next step, the NDRC will make a big push to strengthen monitoring and early warning over prices, guide localities to stabilize production and enrich commodity reserves, Meng said at a news conference in Beijing.

China's overall price levels are within a reasonable range despite rising global inflationary pressure, as China's consumer price index rose 0.9 percent in the first 11 months, much lower than the figures of major economies, Meng said.

Referring to coal prices, Meng said various parties have been longing to see a pricing mechanism to stabilize coal prices. And the NDRC will continue to work on the mechanism and take timely measures to keep coal prices within a reasonable range.

Li Xuesong, director of the Institute of Quantitative and Technological Economics, which is part of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, expects China's overall prices will rise moderately in 2022.

Citing a newly released blue book by the CASS, he said the PPI and CPI are set to increase 5 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively, in China in 2022.

Louis Kuijs, head of Asia Economics of Oxford Economics, a think tank, said he expects global and domestic supply constraints, as well as global commodity prices, to ease in the future.

"As a result, we expect China's producer price inflation to fall sharply in 2022. Pass-through to consumer prices remains low amid strong competition and subdued consumption. Thus, we don't expect CPI inflation will exceed the central bank's target and should not affect monetary policy in a major way," Kuijs said.

During the news conference, Meng from the NDRC also said China will speed up the implementation of projects funded by local government special-purpose bonds to boost investment.

As a larger proportion of this year's local government special bonds were issued in the second half, a considerable part of those special bonds will be used in the first quarter next year, Meng said.

"In this setting, the use of those local government bonds and the issuance of special bonds in 2022 will provide strong support for expanding effective investment next year," Meng added.

The NDRC will urge localities to complete all preparatory work for projects that have not been started yet and strengthen coordination and promotion of projects under construction, the spokeswoman said.

To better deal with pressure related to supply, demand and expectations, Tang Jianwei, chief researcher at Bank of Communications financial research center, said a proactive fiscal policy should have a greater effect on stabilizing growth and expanding demand, including increasing investment in "new infrastructure" and taking more steps for tax and fee reductions.

Citing the tasks mapped out by the Central Economic Work Conference held last week, Luo Zhiheng, deputy director and chief macroeconomic analyst of Yuekai Securities research institute, said stabilizing investment will be a key focus of economic work in the future, which will help hedge against downside risks.