China's inflation may grow slower to 1.8 percent in January from a seven-month high of 2.5 percent in December as food supply returned to normal, leading to hopes of no policy changes by the government, analysts predicted.
Ahead of the inflation data to be released on Friday, they also said that exports and imports may continue to grow strongly last month due to more working days in January compared to the same month a year earlier.
"There will unlikely be any big policy changes this month," said Lu Zhengwei, chief economist at Industrial Bank. "It is because China's economic data in the past few months pointed to a mild recovery so that aggressive moves are unnecessary."
Lu projected the Consumer Price Index, the main gauge of inflation, to rise 1.8 percent annually last month as food prices and supply of vegetables returned to normal.
In December, vegetable prices surged 14.8 percent due to supply disruption amid the coldest weather in nearly 30 years.
The Producer Price Index, the factory-gate measurement of inflation, may fall 1.7 percent year on year in January, narrowing from December's drop of 1.9 percent, Lu said.
Tang Jianwei, an economist at the Bank of Communications, said a higher comparative base also helped moderate inflation.
The CPI hit the highest level last year when it climbed 4.5 percent in January.
Both economists said the data for exports and imports would continue to be "good looking" but they attributed this to more working days last month as the Lunar New Year starts on Sunday, later compared with a year earlier.
Lu said exports may jump 18.5 percent last month, stronger than December's 14.5-percent growth. Imports may surge 30 percent in January, also better than 6 percent a month earlier.
Analysts said the economy may gain 8.3 percent in the first quarter of this year, exceeding the 7.9 percent growth in the final three months last year which ended a seven-quarter slowdown.
