Investing.com - Consumer prices for March in China fell 0.4%, more than the expected 0.3% decline month-on-month and up 2.3% year-on-year, less than the 2.5% gain seen, according to official data released on Monday.
Producer prices fell 4.3% year-on-year in March., less than the 4.6% decline expected. The Producer Price index gained 0.5% month-on-month in March, its first rise since January 2014 and compared with a decline of 0.3% in February.
"Looking ahead, we expect consumer price inflation to remain near current levels for the rest of this year," Capital Economics said in a note to clients.
"Admittedly, the fall in oil prices during the second half of 2015 will boost energy inflation later in the year and looser monetary and fiscal policy should also support broader price pressures. That said, the recent rise in pig numbers suggests that pork price inflation should begin to ease before long, which will help keep a lid on inflation. The upshot is that we don’t expect inflation to become a constraint on policy in the near future."
China's statistics bureau recalibrated the CPI index components in January in a once every-five-years review and the weighting of food in the index declined. Under the old weightings, the CPI gain in February and March may have topped 2.5%.
The government set the CPI growth target at about 2.3% for 2016, which serves as the ceiling of Premier Li Keqiang's reasonable range of economic growth.