The consumer price index (CPI), the main gauge of inflation, rose 2.8 percent year on year in April, hitting an 18-month record, said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Yao Jingyuan, chief economist of the NBS, said April's CPI growth was mainly due to rising food prices, particularly vegetables. Food prices, accounting for about one third of the CPI's weight, gained 5.9 percent in April.

"The government should be vigilant and take action now to prevent the price hikes from spreading to the overall stock of food and commodities," Yao said.

Yao said the index would continue to rise year on year given the low base in 2009. It was difficult but still possible to keep CPI growth around 3 percent for the whole year, he said.

The producer price index (PPI), an indicator of inflation at the wholesale level, grew 6.8 percent in April, 0.9 percentage points higher than in March.

But Lu Zhengwei, chief economist with the Industrial Bank Co. Ltd., said the surge in the PPI may not feed into the CPI since enterprises engaged in fierce competition are less likely to pass cost pressures to consumers.