Breathtaking inflation

A jump in consumer inflation by 8.7 percent last month, the biggest in nearly 12 years, should galvanize Chinese policymakers into another round of tightening measures.

It has become quite clear that the inflation figures for the first two months of the year will make it difficult for the government to keep the full-year inflation rate under its target of 4.8 percent.

The figure, compared with 7.1 percent in January, is well above almost all market expectations. Though observers have factored in the Lunar New Year holidays and the severest winter storm in half a century that hit central and southern China, few seemed to have grasped the full impact of these events on price gains.