BEIJING - China's producer price index (PPI), which measures inflation at the wholesale level, fell 2.6 percent year on year in April, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday.

The drop, which was lower than the 2.2 percent market estimation, recorded the lowest figure since last November, suggesting continued weak market demand.

Output prices of production materials fell 3.5 percent year on year in April, contributing about 2.68 percentage points of the PPI drop in the month, while those of consumer goods gained 0.3 percent during the period.

The data came along with the release of China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, which grew 2.4 percent year on year in April, up from 2.1 percent in March.