China Consumer Inflation Edges Up in April

China's consumer inflation accelerated in April, as higher non-food prices helped outweigh continued falls in food prices, official data showed Wednesday.

China's consumer price index increased 1.2% in April from a year earlier, compared with a 0.9% gain in March, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

Food prices declined 3.5% from a year earlier, compared with a 4.4% drop in March. Non-food prices grew 2.4% from a year earlier, compared with 2.3% growth in March.

The key inflation reading slightly outpaced a 1.1% gain in the CPI forecast by economists polled by The Wall Street Journal.

On a month-over-month basis, the CPI edged up 0.1% in April. In March, it fell 0.3% from the previous month.

Beijing hopes to keep inflation under about 3% this year.

China's producer prices rose for an eighth straight month in April from a year earlier, though the pace of gains slowed for a second month in a row.

The producer price index climbed 6.4% in April from a year earlier, compared with a 7.6% on-year increase in March.

The reading for factory-gate prices came in slower than the 6.8% increase forecast by economists polled in the survey.

The PPI dropped 0.4% in April from a month earlier. In March, it rose 0.3% from the preceding month.

Write to Liyan Qi at liyan.qi@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 09, 2017 22:02 ET (02:02 GMT)