Yao Jingyuan, chief economist at the National Bureau of Statistics, yesterday said at a forum that China's inflation rate would fall to below 4 percent in November and December.

His predictions seemed conservative compared to a report from the Bank of Communications which forecast that the CPI (consumer price index) in November will fall to 2.8 percent, the lowest in the past 17 months.

Declining food prices are expected to lead the slide in the CPI, the bank report said. It predicted that the index will fall further to 2 percent in December while deflation will set in at the beginning of next year.

At the same forum, Yao said that China's foreign exchange reserves had already reached US$2 trillion. According to official figure from the National Bureau of Statistics, by the end of this September, China's foreign exchange reserves totaled US$1.9 trillion, up 33 percent from a year earlier.

(China Daily November 28, 2008)