CCTV9英语新闻：Consumer prices +2.3% y-y, producer deflation eases in China

China's consumer prices rose slightly on an annual basis in April, in line with market expectations. The consumer price index edged up 2.3 percent in April from a year ago, unchanged from March. Month-on-month, prices fell 0.2 percent, the data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows. Inflation was largely driven by higher food prices, and it looks like it's a good time to become a vegetarian, as the price of pork jumped a massive 33.5 percent. That's up from a 28.4 percent surge in March. 

 

The Beijing municipal government last week said it will release 3 million kilograms of frozen pork reserves in a bid to combat the skyrocketing prices. On a monthly basis, food prices fell 1.4 percent, indicating that the recent uptick in inflation could be short lived as the prices of other goods and services remain muted. 

 

The deflation in producer prices meanwhile is easing. Producer prices in April fell 3.4 percent from a year earlier, compared with the previous month's fall of 4.3 percent. The market had expected producer prices to fall 3.8 percent on an annual basis. Let's take a closer look now at the PPI numbers here and listen to what economists have to say about the outlook for prices at the factory gate.