China’s consumer inflation edged higher in April while factory prices continued to slide, pointing to a continued rocky recovery in the world’s second-largest economy as Beijing battles lagging consumer demand and global trade tensions.
The national consumer price index rose 0.3 per cent year on year in April, official statistics showed on Saturday, ticking up from an 0.1 per cent rise in March, with price increases in areas including energy, education and tourism offsetting falling food costs.
China’s economy had been beset by flat or falling consumer prices for almost a year, with the country’s 1.4bn consumers widely opting to save instead of spend in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.