BEIJING, May 11 (Xinhua) -- China's Producer Price Index (PPI), a main gauge of inflation at the wholesale level, fell 0.7 percent in April from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday.
The data marked another month of year-on-year decline after China's PPI saw a drop in March for the first time since December 2009, NBS data showed.
The negative growth was widely in line with market expectations, as analysts attributed the decline mainly to a larger comparison base last year.
The data also suggested weak market demands in China's manufacturing sector, said Wang Jianhui, an analyst with Southwest Securities, citing slower export and import growth as traces of sluggish activities in the area.
China's exports amounted to 163.25 billion U.S. dollars in April, up 4.9 percent year-on-year but down 5 percentage points from March, while its imports edged up a mere 0.3 percent to reach 144.83 billion U.S. dollars, official data showed Thursday.
On a month-on-month basis, the country's PPI in April grew 0.2 percent, according to the NBS.
This came as the retreating prices of commodities in the international market still need time to leave their mark on the Chinese market, analysts said.
Meanwhile, producer purchase prices went down 0.8 percent year-on-year in April and stayed flat on a monthly basis, the NBS said.
In the first four months of this year, the PPI edged down 0.1 percent year-on-year, while producer purchase prices gained 0.6 percent, it added.
The NBS also announced Friday that the consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, eased to 3.4 percent from a year earlier in April.
Given the downward trend of inflation, Pan Xiangdong, chief economist with Galaxy Securities, said it is time for China to consider fine-tuning its monetary policies to add some fuel to the slowing economy.
China's first-quarter GDP growth hit a near-three-year low of 8.1 percent caused by sagging exports and domestic tightening efforts.
