BEIJING, May 11 (Reuters) - China's consumer prices fell 1.5 percent in the year to April, marking the third consecutive month of deflation, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday.
Economists had expected a 1.4 percent decline in the consumer price index (CPI) following a 1.2 percent fall in the year to March. [ID:nPEK273616]
In the first four months of this year, prices were down 0.8 percent, the statistics office said.
In April alone, consumer prices fell 0.2 percent, it said. This month-on-month figure is not seasonally adjusted.
Food prices, which make up a third of the consumer basket, fell 1.3 percent in April from from a year earlier. Non-food prices were down 1.5 percent.
China's producer prices fell 6.6 percent in the year to April, the rate of decline accelerating from a 6.0 percent drop in the 12 months to March, the agency said.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected the producer price index to fall 6.5 percent.
In the first four months of this year, producer prices were down 5.1 percent, the statistics office said.
Economists are relaxed about the fall in prices, seeing it as a statistical correction of the surge in food and some industrial commodity prices in early 2008 rather than the harbinger of economic contraction.
The NBS issued no statement to explain the figures.
CONSUMER PRICE INDEX ________2009______ ________________2008__________________ Apr Mar Feb Jan Dec Nov Oct Sep Aug Jul Jun May -1.5 -1.2 -1.6 1.0 1.2 2.4 4.0 4.6 4.9 6.3 7.1 7.7
PRODUCER PRICE INDEX _______2009_______ ___ ____________2008__________________ Apr Mar Feb Jan Dec Nov Oct Sep Aug Jul Jun May -6.6 -6.0 -4.5 -3.3 -1.1 2.0 6.6 9.1 10.1 10.0 8.8 8.2 (Reporting by Langi Chiang and Alan Wheatley; Editing by Ken Wills)