China PPI rise 5.5%, CPI up 1.5% in June

China's producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, rose 5.5 percent year-on-year in June, flat with the pace in May, official data showed Monday.

The 5.5-percent rise marked the end of continued declines in PPI growth pace since February this year. In the first half of 2017, PPI averaged 6.6 percent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Factory-gate price inflation in the ferrous metal and non-ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industries expanded from a year earlier, while the price increases eased for the coal mining and dressing, petroleum processing, as well as petroleum and natural gas extraction industries, according to NBS senior statistician Sheng Guoqing.

Month on month, PPI edged down 0.2 percent in June, narrowing from the 0.3-percent decline in May, NBS data showed.

China's PPI has stayed in positive territory since September, when it ended a four-year streak of declines, partly due to the government's successful campaign to cut industrial overcapacity, which benefited the wider economy.

The PPI figures came alongside the release of the consumer price index, which rose 1.5 percent year on year in June, flat with the pace in May.

China's consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, rose 1.5 percent year on year in June, the National Bureau of Statistics said Monday.

The June expansion remained unchanged from May's reading, and increased from April's 1.2 percent and March's 0.9 percent. On a monthly basis, however, the CPI declined 0.2 percent, according to the bureau.

The NBS attributed the monthly decline in CPI to lower food prices, which dropped 1 percent month on month in June.

Fruit prices shed 4.2 percent month on month in June. Pork and vegetable prices fell 3.4 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively.

Editor: Eric Wang