China's CPI up 0.2% in June

China's consumer prices increased modestly in June while factory-gate prices saw a slowdown in annual declines, official data showed on Wednesday.

The country's consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, rose by 0.2 percent year-on-year in June after a 0.3 percent rise in May, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

Within the CPI, food prices dropped 2.1 percent year-on-year in June versus a 2 percent annual contraction in May. Notably, the price of fresh vegetables declined 7.3 percent in June, following a 2.3 percent rise in May. Pork, a staple in Chinese cuisine, saw prices go up by 18.1 percent in June after a 4.6 percent growth in May. 

Meanwhile, non-food prices posted a 0.8 percent rise compared with a year earlier in June, flat with the rise in May. The growth in energy narrowed from 3.4 percent in May to 3.1 percent in June. Prices of gas-powered cars and new energy vehicles declined 6 percent and 7.4 percent, respectively.

On a month-on-month basis, the CPI dropped 0.2 percent in June versus a 0.1 percent decline in May. 

The growth in core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices and is deemed a better gauge of the supply-demand relationship in the economy, rose by 0.6 percent year-on-year in June, unchanged from the growth in May.

Dong Lijuan, an NBS statistician, attributed the year-on-year CPI growth to a well-stocked market, while the PPI declined due to factors including the international commodity price fluctuations and insufficient demand for some industrial products in the domestic market. 

China's producer price index, which gauges factory-gate prices, dropped by 0.8 percent from a year ago in June, narrowing from a 1.4 percent fall in May, the NBS said. 

On a month-on-month basis, the PPI dropped 0.2 percent in June after a 0.2 percent rise in May, according to the NBS.