泰晤士报 中国领导人要对通胀采取行动

中国总理温家宝13日誓言要稳定物价。10月的通胀再次加速，达近11年来的最高纪录。

　　温家宝是在看望北京一些穷人的时候作出这个承诺的。上月消费物价通胀在食品价格飙升的助推下从9月的6.2%上升至6.5%，赶上8月份的水平。这次上升让中国人民银行更可能进行今年第六次加息。

　　物价的上涨，特别是食品价格的上涨，可能破坏社会稳定，共产党执政者为此心焦，总理走访北京中心的贫困小巷的决定可以体现这一点。

　　他进入雨儿胡同22号院，这是一座一层高的、没有室内卫生间的房子，他和老人刘秀英握手，他告诉她：“这些日子里物价在涨，我知道物价即使涨一元（人民币）都会影响人民的生活。”

　　瑞士信贷（Credit Suisse）香港首席亚洲经济学家陶冬（Dong Tao）表示，“当你看到饭桌上的成本不断上升，你就会跑到老板那里说‘你要么给我加工资，要么我辞职另找工作’”。在上月的通胀中，食品价格的上涨压倒性地牵头，与去年同期相比上涨17.6%。蔬菜的价格上涨29.9%，食用油的价格上涨34%。国家统计局的数据表明，非食品类价格的涨幅较为温和，为1.1%。然而，经济学家认为从猪肉到食用油等各种食品的价格激增可能蔓延到更广泛的经济。

　　相对高的通胀将持续到11月，因此，关于央行在年底前至少继续加息0.27%以冷却经济的预期加强。

　　食品价格上涨对共产党当局而言是个敏感的问题，因为中国贫困的多数人三分之一的收入用于食品。官员仍然记得八十年代末的通胀高峰引发的示威。周末，在中国西南部的一个家乐福超市，顾客抢购打折的食用油导致践踏事件，3人死亡，31人受伤。

　　13日在雨儿胡同，居民表示他们被总理的关怀感动，但这还是不够的。一名退休的银行柜员表示，“温总理能来这里表示他对我们的支持，这一点非常好，但问题是地方官员会不会真的履行他控制物价的承诺。我昨天不愿意花七毛钱（人民币）买洋葱，但今天我发现它更贵了，要八毛五。”

　　北京在9月冻结食用油和其他基础物品的价格，敦促农民养更多的猪——蓝耳病给猪群很大打击。当庄稼可以收割，当更多的猪走向市场，物价压力可能会减轻。（作者 Jane Macartney）

Chinese leader vows action on inflation

The Chinese Prime Minister vowed yesterday to stabilise prices as inflation accelerated again to a near-11-year high in October.

Wen Jiabao made the promise while visiting some of Beijing’s poor as it was revealed that consumer price inflation, fuelled by soaring food costs, had risen to 6.5 per cent last month, matching the level in August and rising from 6.2 per cent in September. The rise makes it all the more likely that the People’s Bank of China will raise interest rates for the sixth time this year.

Anxiety among Communist Party rulers that the rise in costs, particularly for food, could undermine social stability was reflected in the Prime Minister’s decision to go on a walkabout in the poorer alleys of central Beijing.

He ducked into No 22 Yu’er Alley, a courtyard of one-storey homes without indoor bathrooms, and shook hands with elderly Liu Xiuying. Mr Wen told her: “Prices have been on the rise these days and I’m aware that even a one-yuan [6½p] increase in prices will affect people’s lives.”

Dong Tao, chief economist for Credit Suisse in Hong Kong, said: “When you see the costs at your dinner table going up for ever, you will go to your boss and say: ‘Either you give me a salary increase or I will quit for another job.’ ” The rise in inflation last month was led overwhelmingly by a rise in food prices, which were up 17.6 per cent from a year earlier. The price of vegetables rose 29.9 per cent and of cooking oil 34 per cent. Prices of nonfood items underwent a more modest increase of 1.1 per cent, the National Bureau of Statistics said. However, economists have said that the surge in food prices for everything from pork to cooking oil could spill into the broader economy.

With that relatively high rate of inflation set to persist in November, expectations are growing that the central bank will go ahead with at least one more 0.27 per cent rise in interest rates before the end of the year to try to cool the economy.

The rise in food prices is a sensitive issue for the communist authorities because China’s poor majority spends as much as a third of its income on food. Officials still remember the leap in inflation in the late 1980s, which culminated in hundreds of thousands taking to the streets to show their anger with the Government and their sympathy with student protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

At the weekend, three people were killed and thirty-one injured in a stampede at a Carrefour superstore in southwestern China as shoppers scrambled for discounted cooking oil.

In Yu’er Alley yesterday, residents said that they had been touched by the Prime Minister’s concern but that more needed to be done. One resident, a retired bank teller, said: “It’s very good that Mr Wen came here to show his support for us, but the question is whether local officials will really carry out his promise to control prices. Yesterday I didn’t want to pay 7 mao [4½p] for onions, but today all I could find was even more expensive at 8½ mao [5½p].”

Beijing froze the prices of cooking oil and other basic items in September and is pressing farmers to raise more pigs for a herd hit hard by blue-ear disease. Price pressure is likely to ease when the new grain crop is harvested and more pigs come to market.