China's PPI down 1.4% in May

BEIJING - China's Producer Price Index (PPI), a main gauge of inflation at the wholesale level, fell 1.4 percent in May from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Saturday.

It fell deeper than April's 0.7 percent, and marked another month of year-on-year decline after China's PPI saw a drop in March for the first time since December 2009.

On a month-on-month basis, the country's PPI in May decreased 0.4 percent, the NBS said in a statement on its website.

Meanwhile, producer purchase prices went down 1.6 percent year-on-year in May and was down 0.3 percent on a monthly basis, it said.

In the first five months of this year, the PPI edged down 0.3 percent year on year, while producer purchase prices gained 0.1 percent, it said.

The NBS also announced Saturday that the consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, rose 3.0 percent in May from a year earlier.