China's consumer price index (CPI) rose quicker than expected in April, coming in at 1.2 percent from a year earlier, the country's National Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday.
The latest data was above Reuters forecast of 1.1 percent but it remained well within the central bank's comfort zone, giving it room to continue with a gradual pace of monetary policy tightening without hurting economic growth.
Meanwhile, the producer price index (PPI) slowed for a second straight month, coming in at 6.4 percent versus expectations for a 6.9 percent rise.
Capital Economics said in a report that producer prices were set to fall again in May given that the rout in industrial commodity prices had deepened.
"Further ahead, producer price inflation should continue to wane as policy tightening weighs on economic activity... hopes for a sustained reflation in China are fading."
In March, CPI rose 0.9 percent year-on-year, while PPI was at 7.6 percent. PPI cooled for the first time in seven months in March as iron ore and coal prices fell at the end of a construction boom.
Tim Condon, head of research at ING in Asia, wrote in a Tuesday note that he had revised China's 2017 CPI forecast down to 2 percent from 2.4 percent. He said with growth global oil prices decelerating, its inflationary impact will moderate as well.
— Reuters contributed to this story