China's May CPI up 2.7%, PPI up 0.6%

China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 2.7 percent year on year in May, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Wednesday.

The reading, in line with market expectations, accelerated from the 2.5-percent expansion in April.

A customer at a supermarket in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province on June 9, 2019. [Photo: IC]

Food prices climbed 7.7 percent year on year last month, up from 6.1 percent in April, according to the NBS.

Non-food prices gained 1.6 percent, 0.1 percentage points lower than that in April.

The CPI in urban areas rose 2.7 percent year on year, while that in rural areas went up 2.8 percent compared with a year ago, the NBS noted.

On a monthly basis, consumer prices remained flat last month, compared with the 0.1-percent increase seen in April.

China's producer price index, which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, rose 0.6 percent year on year in May, said NBS.

The pace was slower than the 0.9-percent increase recorded in April, NBS data showed.

On a monthly basis, producer prices went up 0.2 percent in May, narrowing from the 0.3-percent increase in April.

In the first five months, the index climbed 0.4 percent from the same period a year earlier.

Factory prices of production materials grew 0.6 percent year on year in May, down from the 0.9-percent increase a month earlier.

Consumer goods prices rose 0.9 percent year on year in May, flat with that in April.