China's largest online consumer-to-consumer (C2C) marketplace Taobao.com recently launched "Taobao CPI", China’s first consumer price index of online shopping, the official Shanghai Securities News reported on Monday.

Based on price trends in online shopping, Taobao CPI is designed to reflect the general ambiance of the online shopping market and the consumption status of urban mainstream citizens.

However, in contrast to the surging official CPI released by the National Statistics Bureau, Taobao CPI has shown a constant downward trend during the first five months of 2008.

According to Taobao.com, the January to May Taobao CPI is 0.41%, -2.74%, -7.28%, -9.24%, -6.35% respectively, while the NBS CPI stands at 7.1%, 8.7%, 8.3%, 8.5%, 7.7% respectively.

Popular commodities in online shopping, such as digital products, clothes and cosmetics, are the primary goods involved in calculating Taobao’s CPI. Prices of these commodities have been dropping since last year, reflecting a more obvious trend in the online shopping market.

For more details, please read the full story in Chinese

(http://paper.cnstock.com/paper_new/html/2008-07/07/content_63655127.htm).

(China.org.cn by Yan Pei July 7, 2008)