2026 Price Outlook: CPI is expected to moderately rise, while PPI may turn positive.

In the full year of 2025, the national consumer price remained flat compared to the previous year, while the producer price index at the factory gate dropped by 2.6%. Looking ahead to this year's prices, will the upward trend in the consumer price index (CPI) and the producer price index (PPI) continue? Can the PPI turn positive, and when will it turn positive? The macro research team at the Cai Xin Research Institute believes that from a macro perspective, the narrowing of the supply-demand gap, the bottoming out and improvement of M1 growth, the stabilization of residential employment, and the expected upward trend in production capacity cycle are four leading indicators that collectively lay the foundation for the rise in prices. In terms of price composition, the "base effect" of CPI and PPI in 2026 will be significantly higher than the previous year; at the same time, in the first year of the "15th Five-Year Plan", the expansion of domestic demand policies and supply-side structural reform policies are expected to work together to support the "new factors driving price increases", leading to a moderate increase in prices. Therefore, the trend of rising prices in 2026 is clear.