Every morning retirees come to this market to buy fresh vegetables and meat. They are on fixed incomes and say that over the past 12 months, prices for staples such as grain and pork have doubled.

New data from China's National Bureau of Statistics show inflation in the country at an 11-year high of 8.7 percent. That is nearly double what Chinese leaders set as a goal for 2008 -- a rate of 4.8 percent.  Sam Beattie reports for VOA from Beijing.