In February revisions were announced to both the consumer price index (CPI) and the national house price index that will affect all 2011 data. Although these changes may have been designed with the goal of improving the quality of China's statistics rather than obscuring current price trends, they will nevertheless complicate the task of analysing such trends.

Year-on-year consumer price inflation rose to 4.9% in January under the new measure, from 4.6% in December. Prices in the food category of the CPI rose fastest, increasing by 10.3% year on year. Although the weighting of food in the consumer basket was reduced by 2.2 percentage points, the National Bureau of Statistics paradoxically insisted that inflation would actually have been marginally lower in January using the previous measuring method. The weighting for residence costs was raised by 4.2 percentage points, while the weightings for a number of other elements of the index, including the clothing, transport and communications category and the tobacco and alcohol category, were slightly reduced.

Given the crucial role of food prices in dictating China's inflation trends, there has been rising concern over the lack of rain in the country's "wheat belt". In early February the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) issued an alert, noting the "severe winter drought" affecting the northern China plain. The vital agricultural provinces of Shandong and Henan, as well as Hebei, Anhui, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu and Jiangsu, are among the areas affected. Drought is not unusual at this time of year, and emergency irrigation systems are well developed. If rain falls in April and May the winter wheat harvest may yet be only slightly reduced, and China is in any case believed to have wheat reserves that are more than sufficient to cover any shortfall without the need to resort to substantial imports. However, the drought has highlighted the risk that shocks to agricultural production could push inflation up even further, and prices for wheat price futures traded on the Zhengzhou commodity exchange rose sharply between January 21st and mid-February. China imported 1.2m tonnes of wheat in 2010 and 904,131 tonnes in 2009.

At least the consumer price inflation series is still being published. The national house price index looks set to be scrapped, although price data for individual cities will still be compiled under revised guidelines. House prices in 70 large Chinese cities were up by 6.4% year on year in December, according to the final data release in the old series. In late January the State Council (China's cabinet) announced yet another list of measures aimed at curbing housing prices by restricting speculative investment. The minimum down payment for purchases of second homes was raised from 50% to 60%, and local governments are to raise punitive tax rates for those reselling houses after less than five years.