China's consumer price index (CPI), the main gauge of inflation, posted a year-on-year increase of 0.9 percent in April, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Tuesday.
Chinese financial data provider Wind said the April CPI met the average forecast by 15 institutions.
Guoxin Securities had given the highest forecast of a 1.3-percent increase, while UBS Securities and Huachuang Securities had the lowest projection of a 0.6-percent rise.
Per details, food prices continued to fall on a yearly and monthly basis by 0.7 percent and 2.4 percent, respectively. The decline narrowed by 1.2 percentage points compared to March.
Pork prices fell by 21.4 percent, the largest fall in food categories on a year-on-year basis.
"With the continuous recovery of live pig production and the drop in consumer demand, pork prices continue to fall," said Dong Lijuan, a senior statistician with the NBS.
PPI beats forecast
The producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, rose by 6.8 percent year on year in April, according to the NBS.
The figure beat the average forecast of 6.2-percent increase by 15 institutions, where CITIC Securities had predicted the high end of a 6.9-percent rise in April PPI, while China Merchants Securities had expected it to rise by only 4.6 percent year on year.
Domestic industrial production recovered steadily while prices of international bulk commodities, such as iron ore and non-ferrous metals, went up, causing prices in the production sector to rise, said Dong.
Affected by the base effect in the same period last year due to COVID-19, the price increase of major industries has expanded, of which oil and natural gas extraction industry saw the highest increase of 85.8 percent year on year, she added.
"The rapid rise of commodity prices pushed up PPI but the impact on CPI was to a large extent offset by the weakening food prices, particularly pork price," Zhang Zhiwei, chief economist of Pinpoint Asset Management, told CGTN.
"We expect CPI will continue to rise but it will likely stay below the government target of 3 percent for the rest of this year," he added.
