China’s consumer prices increased in July while producer prices continued to fall, official data showed.

China’s consumer prices index went up by 1.6 percent year-on-year in July, the National Bureau of Statistics of China announced on Sunday. It was a 0.3 percent increase from June, it added.

According to Chinese official news agency Xinhua, July’s increase in consumer prices was mainly due to the 16.7-percent rise in pork prices compared to a year earlier.

But the producer price index (PPI) dropped 5.4 percent in July from a year ago; and 0.3 percent from the previous month. It accelerated its decline from a 4.8-percent fall in June and exceeded market forecasts, the Wall Street Journal newspaper reported.

The newspaper said some analysts attributed July’s fall in producer prices to lower global prices for commodities.

“We expect the PPI to stay in negative territory through the first half of next year,” said Liu Xuezhi, an economist at the Bank of Communications.

Mr Liu added – as quoted by the newspaper – that this factor posed a challenge to the Central Government’s target of 7-percent economic growth in 2015.