China's factory prices down 3.6% in April

China's producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, went down 3.6 percent year on year in April, the National Bureau of Statistics said Thursday.

The decrease expanded by 1.1 percentage points from that registered in March. On a monthly basis, China's PPI edged down 0.5 percent, according to the bureau.

Affected by the fluctuation of international commodity prices, weak demand in domestic and foreign markets and the high comparison base of the same period last year, the PPI declined, said the bureau's chief statistician Dong Lijuan.

Thursday's data also showed that China's consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, edged up 0.1 percent year on year in April.