China's CPI up 2.1 pct in April

China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 2.1 percent year on year in April, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Wednesday.

On a monthly basis, the CPI inched up 0.4 percent partly due to the domestic resurgence of COVID-19 and the continuous rise of bulk commodity prices across the globe, noted Dong Lijuan, a senior statistician with the NBS.

Food prices went up 0.9 percent from the previous month, driving up the monthly consumer inflation by about 0.17 percentage points, according to the data.

Specifically, the price of pork, a staple meat in China, increased 1.5 percent month-on-month in April, compared with a 9.3-percent decrease in March. Hog production has gradually tempered and stockpiling of pork to replenish state reserves is in progress, Dong said.

However, pork prices still registered a year-on-year drop of 33.3 percent, narrowing by 8.1 percentage points from the previous month.

Non-food prices rose 2.2 percent from a year earlier, the same growth recorded the previous month. The prices of gasoline, diesel and liquified petroleum gas went up by 29 percent, 31.7 percent and 26.9 percent year on year, respectively.

Wednesday's data also showed that China's producer price index, which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, went up 8 percent year on year in April.