Soaring egg prices in China sparked anger across the country, highlighting the contrast between its slowing national economy and consumer cost pressures.
Beijing recently said that GDP grew 4.3% in the three months to June, one of the lowest quarterly readings on record, and many experts question whether the world’s second-largest economy achieved even that: Some believe China’s true growth rate may in fact be zero, “or that the economy is in outright recession,” an analyst wrote in The Wall Street Journal.
Yet rising energy prices resulting from the Iran war have pushed some costs higher — egg prices are up 40% year-on-year — in what The New York Times characterized as “a paradox in an economy still struggling.”