China's consumer inflation jumped to its highest level in 11 years in November due to rising food prices, official figures showed on Tuesday, adding to pressure for a sixth interest rate hike this year.

The key inflation indicator, the Consumer Price Index, jumped 6.9 percent from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement on its website. The growth for the first 11 months was 4.6 percent, well above the official target of three percent.

The central bank should raise the interest rates to make the real rate positive, said Zuo Xiaolei, chief economist of Galaxy Securities. Currently, China's one-year saving interest rate stands at 3.87 percent, well below the inflation rate, indicating a loss of purchasing power for depositors.

Zuo suggested a rise of 54 basis points of the interest rate to curb consumers' inflation expectation. A high expectation might lead to rush on goods, thus further pushing up prices.

However, the central bank is unlikely to resort to such a big rise, she said, as it has other concerns, including the influx of hot money and a bigger financial burden for borrowers.

"The latest figure indicates accelerating inflation pressure," NBS chief economist Yao Jingyuan said.

Food prices remain the key driving forces behind the rise in November, jumping 18.2 percent. Among food items, pork saw the biggest price increases, followed by a 38.8 percent rise in poultry products. Non-food items went up 1.4 percent.

Adding to the price pressure, the Producer Price Index, which measures inflation at the wholesale level, jumped 4.6 percent in November, the biggest monthly increase in more than two years.

The CPI had hit a decade high of 6.5 percent in August, before easing to 6.2 percent in September and rebounding to 6.5 percent in October.

Zuo expected the price pressure to continue next year. "The CPI growth in 2008 might be 4 to 5 percent, as least for the first quarter due to the Spring Festival," she said.

Zuo also cited the Beijing Olympics and potential price hikes in utilities as factors.

That was in line with the prediction of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a major government think tank. It forecasts the CPI figure to be around 4 percent in 2008.

In the face of rising living costs, the country's top leaders made curbing inflation a priority next year and have decided to adopt a "tight" monetary policy, the first shift from a "prudent" one in 10 years.

During the weekend, the central bank announced a one percent hike in the bank reserve ratio to 14.5 percent, the highest level since 1984. That was the 10th increase this year.

(China Daily December 12, 2007)