China's consumer price index (CPI), a key inflation indicator, rose 2.4 percent year on year in April, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Thursday.

The April CPI growth was in line with the market forecast of about 2.3 percent, and higher compared to the 2.1 percent in March

The rise in CPI is attributed mainly to an unusual increase in vegetable prices during that month as low temperatures and scarce rainfalls disrupted supplies, according to the NBS.

In April, food prices, which account for nearly one-third of weighting in China's CPI, increased 4 percent year on year, with the prices of vegetables rising 5.9 percent, NBS data showed.

The producer price index (PPI), a main gauge of inflation at the wholesale level, drop 2.6 percent year on year last month, according to the NBS.

The decrease of PPI was lower than previous market estitmate of 2.2 percent. However, it's still at the lowest level since November 2012, indicating a still weak market demand.

Output prices of production materials fell 3.5 percent from last April, contributing about 2.68 percentage points of the PPI drop, while those of consumer goods increased by 0.3 percent in April.

The Chinese government aims to hold this year's consumer inflation at around 3.5 percent.

Official data earlier this month showed China's Purchasing Managers' Index for the manufacturing sector fell to 50.6 percent in April from 50.9 percent in March. The sub-index for new orders edged down 0.6 percentage points from the previous month to 51.7 percent.

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