Pirlo International Co.,Ltd

SHANGHAI – Lin Yibai, a 27-year-old Shanghai resident, frowns at the steamed buns in a fast food store adjacent to his workplace.
Every morning he buys two buns, which costs three yuan (46 cents) for breakfast. But, from this year onwards, he has to buy four.
It’s not because his appetite has expanded. Rather, the buns have shrunk.
To Lin and many other city dwellers in China, inflation is not just a set of official figures. Rising prices of food and daily necessities are having an effect on the wallets of the Chinese.
Lin counts the number of bites to gauge the value of his money. These days “it lasts no more than two bites,” he sighed, referring to a steamed bun. In the past, he could enjoy five bites of a bun.
Buns, one of the most common foods in Shanghai, are the basis of Lin’s inflation index.
“I don’t have to wait for the government to tell me how much less my money is worth,” he said.
“I can tell from the size of my buns.”
“Almost every resident in Shanghai has his or her own price index on their major purchases, but I guess all the indices are pointing up,” Lin said.The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Wednesday that China’s consumer price index (CPI) rose 5.3 percent in April compared to a year earlier, excluding housing costs.
Food prices, which account for nearly a third of the CPI basket, surged 11.5 percent, according to Sheng Laiyun, a spokesman for the NBS.
For Wang Wenting, her hair rather than food is the major factor in her rocketing expenditure. She is considering cutting her hair short, as she can no longer afford to get it done at the salon as often as she used to do.
“I have my hair done at least four times a month, setting different styles every time before I attend a party. I may not be able to afford this any longer,” she said.
Average monthly expenses for hair styling have rocketed from 300 yuan in 2010 to 500 yuan this year.
“It’s not fun when you have to pay so much to have fun,” she said.
Zhang Yingcheng, a 48-year-old businessman, is sensitive about fuel surcharges.
“Last week I bought a ticket that has a face value of 200 yuan, but the fuel surcharge was 160 yuan,” he said.
A frequent flier, Zhang estimates that since May he has had to pay at least 400 yuan a month for the fuel oil surcharge.
One yuan is a big deal for 21-year-old Yan Hao, a college student in Shanghai’s Songjiang, district
When the price of yogurt rose from four to five yuan in April, he had to cross it off his shopping list.
His weekly food budget is 100 yuan, and almost everything on his menu now costs one yuan more than in April.
A bowl of rice rose from one yuan to two yuan, and fried chicken wings rose from 10 yuan to 11.
“I used to drink a bottle of yogurt every day when it cost four yuan. Now, I drink it two days in a week; the price of yogurt rose to five yuan,” he said.
Even teenagers realize their pocket money is devalued.
“With my 50 yuan weekly pocket money, I could buy drinks and snacks every day on my way home after school, but I take my own bottle now. Drinks are too expensive,” said 15-year-old Wang Rongjie.

Figure drops slightly year-on-year, but exceeds market expectations
BEIJING – China’s new yuan lending in April stood at 739.6 billion yuan ($113.8 billion), 8.8 percent higher than that in March, despite frequent moves to mop up liquidity and curb inflation, according to data released by the central bank on Wednesday.
The figure showed a slight decrease of 20.8 billion yuan from a year earlier, but it exceeded the general market expectation, said China International Capital Corp Ltd in a research note.
“We need to notice that although new lending has already shrunk a lot compared with that in 2009 and 2010, the current level is still very high compared with the normal level before the financial crisis, which indicates the growth rate of loans will probably continue to fall in the future,” it said.
Lu Ting, an economist at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, said usually the first month of each quarter witnesses stronger lending than usual.Chinese banks extended 1.04 trillion yuan of new loans in January amid the country’s efforts to tame excess liquidity and rising inflation.
E Yongjian, an economist at the Bank of Communications, said that compared with the new lending in January, the figure in April is moderate, indicating the credit level is becoming more stable under tightening measures such as higher reserve requirement ratios and differentiated requirements for lenders to control their lending pace.
Lu predicted new yuan lending in the second quarter will reach 2.16 trillion yuan, about 30 percent of the 7 to 7.5 trillion new yuan loans through the whole year.
By the end of April, outstanding yuan-denominated loans rose 17.5 percent year-on-year to 50.21 trillion yuan, the central bank said, which is 0.4 percentage points lower than one month earlier.
China’s “moderately loose” monetary policy, adopted in 2008 to combat the fallout of the global financial crisis, has generated the problem of excess liquidity, and resulted in surging inflation.
New yuan-denominated lending reached 7.95 trillion yuan last year, exceeding the government’s target ceiling of 7.5 trillion.
To soak up excess liquidity and fight inflation, in April, the central bank raised interest rates for the fourth time since October, and increased the reserve requirement for lenders for the fourth time since the beginning of this year.
M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, increased by 15.3 percent year-on-year to 75.73 trillion yuan by the end of April, 1.3 percentage points lower than that in March.
China’s consumer price index (CPI) rose by 5.3 percent in April year-on-year, 0.1 percentage point lower that the 32-month high seen in March, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Wednesday.
Barclays Capital said it continues to believe policy-tightening needs to be firmly in place at least in the second quarter, while the probability of over-tightening or a hard landing remains small.
It expected one more benchmark rate hike in the second quarter, sometime in late May to early June, and another rate hike in the third quarter, depending on inflation dynamics.
“Quantitative measures will continue to play an important role in policy tightening, to withdraw liquidity and control the pace of lending,” said Chang Jian, an economist at Barclays Capital, predicting at least one more reserve requirement ratio hike in the second quarter, given the large amount of bills and repurchasing agreements set to mature over the next couple of months.
There’s still room for further interest rate hikes, Li Daokui, an adviser to the monetary policy committee of the central bank, was quoted by the Shandong Business Daily on Wednesday as saying.
He said the interest rates still need two to three rounds of adjustments to curb inflation expectation, adding that inflation will stop slightly above 4 percent, it reported.

A buyer (C) examines the informations of a washing machine brand, during the 109th China Import and Export Fair, also called the Canton Fair, in Guangzhou, south China’s Guangdong Province, April 15, 2011. The Canton Fair, China’s largest trade fair and a key indicator of the country’s trade and economic development, opened Friday amid growing inflation concerns weighing on the nation’s exporters.

Some buyers takes photos outside the exhibition hall of the 109th China Import and Export Fair.

Suppliers and buyers.