China's consumer price index (CPI), the main gauge of inflation, rose 8.5 percent year on year in April, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday.

　　The figure, compared with 8.3 percent in March and a nearly 12-year-high of 8.7 percent in February, was broadly in line with most forecasts.

　　The bureau attributed the rebound to a low CPI year-on-year growth of 3 percent in April last year, in addition to rapid increases in prices of grains and other primary products on international markets.

　　Food prices, which account for more than a third of the CPI calculation, soared 22.1 percent in April, 0.7 percentage points higher than the growth in March.

　　The price of meat increased 47.9 percent, with that of pork surging 68.3 percent. Cooking oil price went up 46.6 percent, with vegetables up 13.6 percent, aquatic products up 16.1 percent and grains up 7.4  percent.

　　In the first four months of this year, the inflation indicator rose 8.2 percent from the same period last year, or 7.8 percent up for urban areas and 8.8 percent up for the countryside.