[National Bureau of Statistics: December CPI rose 0.8% year-on-year, reaching the highest level since March 2023] Jin10 News, January 9 – Dong Lijuan, Chief Statistician of the Urban Department at the National Bureau of Statistics, interpreted the December 2025 CPI and PPI data. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.8% year-on-year, an increase of 0.1 percentage points from the previous month, rebounding to the highest level since March 2023. The year-on-year increase was mainly driven by the expanded rise in food prices. Excluding food and energy prices, the core CPI rose 1.2% year-on-year, with the growth rate remaining above 1% for four consecutive months. Service prices rose 0.6%, contributing approximately 0.25 percentage points to the year-on-year CPI increase. Among them, household service prices rose 1.2%, while rental prices fell 0.3%. Excluding energy, the prices of industrial consumer goods rose 2.5%, contributing approximately 0.63 percentage points to the year-on-year CPI increase. Among these, the price increase of gold jewelry continued to expand to 68.5%; the price increases for household appliances and daily household goods expanded to 5.9% and 3.2%, respectively; the price declines for fuel-powered small cars and new energy small cars narrowed to 2.4% and 2.2%, respectively.