China's CPI up 2.1 pct in May

A customer buys vegetables at a supermarket in Linquan County, east China's Anhui Province, May 11, 2022. (Photo by Lu Qijian/Xinhua)

BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 2.1 percent year on year in May, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday.

On a monthly basis, the CPI edged down 0.2 percent thanks to effective COVID-19 control and a sufficient supply of consumer goods, noted Dong Lijuan, a senior statistician with the NBS.

Food prices reversed the 0.9-percent gain in April to fall 1.3 percent month-on-month, lowering the monthly consumer inflation by about 0.24 percentage points, according to the data.

Specifically, the price of pork, a staple meat in China, increased 5.2 percent in May over the previous month. Hog production has gradually tempered and stockpiling of pork to replenish state reserves continues, Dong said.

However, pork prices still registered a year-on-year drop of 21.1 percent, narrowing by 12.2 percentage points from the previous month.

Non-food prices rose 2.1 percent from a year earlier, compared to the 2.2-percent rise in April. The prices of gasoline, diesel, and liquified petroleum gas went up by 27.6 percent, 30.1 percent, and 26.9 percent year on year, respectively.

Friday's data also showed that China's producer price index, which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, rose 6.4 percent year on year in May.