China's consumer price inflation rose more-than-expected in April on rising food prices, while factory gate inflation slowed moderately, official data revealed on Wednesday.
Consumer price inflation rose to 2.1 percent in April from 1.5 percent in March, the National Bureau of Statistics said. Economists had forecast inflation to rise to 1.8 percent.
The government targets around 3 percent inflation for the whole year of 2022.
Food prices moved up 1.9 percent, in contrast to the 1.5 percent fall in March. The increase partly reflects higher cost of transportation and the rising need for stockpiling of food products. Non-food prices increased 2.2 percent.
Core inflation that excludes energy and food prices eased to 0.9 percent from 1.1 percent in March.
On a monthly basis, consumer prices climbed 0.4 percent. Although the increase was slower than the 0.6 percent rise in March, the rate exceeded the expected 0.2 percent.
In a separate communiqu?, the NBS said producer price inflation slowed to 8.0 percent in April from 8.3 percent in March. The rate was expected to ease more sharply to 7.7 percent.
Despite the increase in April, consumer price inflation remains relatively subdued and there are already signs in the producer price data of upstream price pressures easing, economists at Capital Economics, said.
Coupled with weak consumer demand, this means CPI inflation is likely to remain well below the government's annual target of 3 percent this year. As such, inflation is unlikely to be a constraint on policy action by the People's Bank of China, the firm noted.
