China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, picked up faster in April by rising 2.8 percent year on year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced here Tuesday.

The April figure was up 0.4 percentage point from 2.4 percent in March. The CPI dropped 1.5 percent in the same month last year.

For the first four months, China's CPI rose 2.4 percent year on year.

The producer price index (PPI), a major measure of inflation at the wholesale level, grew 6.8 percent year on year in April and was up 0.9 percentage point from March.

In April, consumer prices in China's urban areas increased 2.7 percent and in rural regions by 3.0 percent. Food prices, which accounted for about a third of the weighting in calculating the CPI, gained 5.9 percent during the month.

China is targeting a rise in consumer prices of around 3 percent this year, according to a government work report delivered by Premier Wen Jiabao in March at the annual legislative session.

China's CPI ended nine months of decline in November of 2009, when it rose 0.6 percent, as the nation's economy rebounded strongly ever since.