China's consumer inflation flat, factory-gate price fall

Vegetable supplies return to normal levels at a market in Beijing. [Photo by Li Xinlei/China Daily]

China's consumer inflation stayed flat in June while factory-gate price decline sped up, official data showed on Monday.

China's consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, remained unchanged from a year earlier in June after a 0.2 percent increase in May, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

Food prices rose by 2.3 percent in June compared with a year ago, up from the 1 percent growth in May. Pork, a staple in Chinese cuisine, saw prices down by 7.2 percent in June after a 3.2 percent decline in May. Meanwhile, the prices of fresh vegetables, potatoes, fresh fruits and poultry saw their prices rise between 4.3 percent and 10.8 percent in June.

Notably, prices for industrial consumer products declined 2.7 percent in June after a 1.7 percent fall in May.

On a month-on-month basis, June's CPI dipped 0.2 percent, same with the previous month's decline.

The producer price index, which gauges factory-gate prices, was down 5.4 percent from a year earlier in June after the 4.6 percent annual contraction seen in May, the NBS said.

On a month-on-month basis, PPI dipped 0.8 percent in June after a 0.9 percent decline in May, said the NBS.

Dong Lijuan, an NBS statistician, said the fall in factory-gate prices was affected by declining prices in commodities like oil and coal as well as a high comparison base in the previous year.