Fears are growing in China that inflation may start to affect more than just food prices. Consumer prices in China rose 8.5% in April from a year earlier.

“Resurgent inflation, everyone agrees, seems a global problem while a slowdown may be largely limited to the US with some spillover effect to Europe,” according to a report in India’s Financial Express newspaper.

China exported deflation for the last 15 years by stocking the shelves of retailers in the West with products made in their factories employing cheap labour and easy capital.