Farm produce prices continue downward trend

BEIJING - Farm produce prices continued to fall last week as vegetable supplies increased with the temperature getting warm, the Ministry of Commerce said on Wednesday.

The average price of 30 kinds of vegetables dipped 9.3 percent last week, with prices of cabbage and lettuce plunging 22 percent and 21.6 percent week on week in a sample of 36 Chinese cities, the ministry said in a statement on its website.

Prices of pork and beef kept unchanged from one week earlier, while mutton prices were down 0.2 percent.

Grain prices oscillated slightly. Rice prices fell 0.2 percent but flour prices edged up 0.3 percent.

Food prices account for one-third of the weighting in the calculation of China's consumer price index (CPI), a major gauge of inflation.

The country aims to hold this year's consumer price growth at around 3 percent. The target is unchanged from that for 2015. China's CPI rose 2.3 percent in March.