China's consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, rose 5.3 percent in April from a year ago, announced the National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday.

The April figure was down 0.1 percentage points from the historic level of 5.4 percent in March.

Food prices, which makes up about one third of the basket of goods in China's CPI calculation, surged by 11.5 percent year-on-year in April. Non-food prices increased 2.7 percent compared to same time last year.

Consumer prices in urban and rural areas rose 5.2 and 5.8 percent year-on-year, respectively, said the NBS.

The producer price index (PPI), a main gauge of inflation at the wholesale level, rose 6.8 percent in April from a year ago, down 0.5 percentage points from March.

April's CPI remained above 5 percent, indicating the country is still facing huge inflationary pressure. This may further increase market expectations for even tighter policies by the Chinese government.

China has adjusted the weight of items in its CPI calculation from the start of this year -- with the food weighting pushed down 2.21 percentage points and property-related weighting up 4.22 percentage points.

(China.org.cn May 11, 2011)