China's consumer inflation rises to 2.4 per cent in April

The rise after a drop in inflation in March was influenced by a jump of 11.2 per cent in fresh vegetable prices last month, the National Bureau of Statistics said.
Consumer inflation had climbed to a 10-month high of 3.2 per cent year-on-year in February but fell to 2.1 per cent in March.
Recent scares over avian influenza and the dumping of pig carcasses had caused a drop in consumption of pork and poultry but fuelled demand for vegetables last month, the official Xinhua news agency quoted Tang Jianwei, an economist at the state-run Bank of Communications, as saying.
The producer price index, which tracks wholesale inflation, dropped 2.6 per cent year-on-year in April, the bureau said.
The government said it aimed to keep annual consumer inflation at about 3.5 per cent after reporting inflation of 2.6 per cent last year.
China's annual economic growth slipped from 9.3 per cent in 2011 to 7.8 per cent last year, the slowest expansion since 1999.//DPA