China’s inflation accelerated to 2.4 percent in April from 2.1 percent in March, official data showed Thursday, rising ahead of market expectations.
The consumer price index (CPI) — a main gauge of inflation — increased by 0.2 percent month-on-month in April, reversing a decrease of 0.9 percent in March, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement.
The year-on-year figure was higher than the median forecast for a gain of 2.2 percent in a poll of 13 economists by Dow Jones Newswires.
Authorities said higher vegetable prices were responsible for the rise.
“The rather large increase in vegetable prices was the main driver of the rise in CPI,” said Yu Qiumei, a senior analyst at the NBS, in a statement, adding that unusually cold temperatures and low rainfall across the country were to blame.
In the first four months of the year, CPI increased by 2.4 percent year-on-year, the NBS said, unchanged from the reading for the first quarter.
China has set its inflation target for this year at 3.5 percent, higher than the actual inflation rate for 2012, which stood at 2.6 percent.
Source AFP
