On January 20th, the price running report was issued by Yichang Investigation Team of NBC (National Bureau of Statistics). According to the statistics, the CPI in urban area of Yichang rose by 3.3% from January to December last year. Its increase was higher than average both provincial and national.

　　Compared with the same period in 2012, among the prices of eight kinds of commodities, six of them had increased, including food, tobacco and alcohol, clothing, medical care and personal items, cultural goods and services, housing. The dropped ones were transportation and communication prices, household facilities and services.

　　It was introduced that food prices rose by 5.9% in the urban area compared with the same period in 2012, which was also the major reason that led to the increase of overall price level. Among food prices, the prices of meat, poultry and their products rose significantly and the prices of fresh vegetables were volatile due to the impact of drought.

　　Housing price increase was the second major cause for the increase of overall price level. Compared with the same period in 2012, the housing price rose by 3.9% from January to December, among which the renting price rose by 4.9% and home-ownership price rose by 6.1%. The renting price in urban area rose heavily at two certain period of last year. The first period was at the end of February when new rules of real estate market regulations were released. The renting price in Xiling District, Wujiagang District and High-tech Zone rose apparently, which was 100 to 200 yuan higher per house than before. The second period was in May, June and July. During the three months, house renting prices around schools and business booming areas rose by 200 to 300 yuan per house due to college students’ graduation and high demands for rental market. Over the course of the year, renting price was a straight line up and the agency fees were on upward trend.  (Reporter Zhu Yanjun Correspondent Zou Jiao)