China's inflation weakens further
11-05-2009
China's inflation weakened further in April, with the consumer price index falling 1.5 percent from a year ago, the government said.
Compared with a month earlier, the index, the main gauge of inflation, was down 0.2 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement.
The continued decline in consumer prices comes as China struggles with the most serious economic slowdown in nearly two decades, brought about by the global financial crisis.
The World Bank has forecast that China's economy, the world's third-largest, will expand by 6.5 percent this year, the lowest rate of growth since 1990.
In March, consumer prices were down 1.2 percent from a year earlier, according to previously released data. In the first four months of the year, the consumer price index fell 0.8 percent from the same period in 2008, according to the bureau.
