China's inflation flat at 1.4% in March

China's inflation stayed at 1.4 per cent in March, unchanged from February, said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). On a month-on-month basis, the bureau said the Consumer Price Index (CPI), however, fell to 0.5 per cent from February's 1.2 per cent. NBS senior economist, Yu Qiumei, attributed the decline in March to the price adjustments after the Chinese New Year celebration. "Food prices had dropped following the low demand of fresh food after the Spring Festival. "Also the warmer weather after the holiday has resulted in a sufficient food supply, which lowered the vegetable prices by 8.9 per cent from a month earlier," Yu said. Yu said the employees had also started to return to work in March and the price adjustments in services industry after the holiday had also resulted in the drop of CPI in March. In a separate data, the NBS said the Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures inflation at the wholesale level, dropped by 4.6 per cent year-on-year in March.