Highlighting weakening industrial demand in China, the country's factory prices fell at the sharpest rate in four years in April.
Compared with a 1.5 percent decline in March, the National Bureau of Statistics said the producer price index (PPI) fell 3.1 percent from a year earlier.
Although a sharper-than-expected decline in imports signalled weak domestic demand, China's exports unexpectedly grew in April from a year earlier.
China is trying to recover from its first economic contraction on record during Q1, when the economy was paralysed by curbs to slow the spread of Covid-19. Chinese factories have been hit by a plunge in overseas orders and face rising inventories and falling profits, while many have let workers go to cut costs.
Slower than a 3.7 percent rise tipped by a poll of analysts and a 4.3 percent increase in March, China's consumer price index (CPI) rose 3.3 percent from a year earlier.
