China's April PPI down 2.6%

BEIJING - China's producer price index (PPI), a barometer of future consumer inflation, fell 2.6 percent year on year in April, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday.

The drop exceeded the 2.2 percent market forcast and recorded the lowest figure since November, suggesting continued weak market demand.

The decline decreased 0.6 percent from March, marking the 14th straight month of falls after the PPI dropped in March 2012 for the first time since December 2009.

Output prices of production materials fell 3.5 percent year on year in April, contributing about 2.68 percentage points of the PPI drop in the month, while those of consumer goods gained 0.3 percent during the period.

The data came along with the release of China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, which grew 2.4 percent year on year in April, up from 2.1 percent in March.