Farm produce prices down for 4th weeks

China's farm produce prices fell for the fourth straight week last week as supplies increased on warm weather, new data has shown.

The wholesale price of 18 types of vegetables dropped 6.2 percent during the week of April 9-15 and 13.5 percent over the past four weeks, the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on its website.

Prices of lettuces, rapes and eggplants slid 40.8 percent, 36 percent and 30.2 percent, respectively.

Pork prices have decreased for 11 consecutive weeks, down 1.4 percent last week and 13.7 percent cumulatively since late January.

Meanwhile, egg prices dropped 0.4 percent last week and 8 percent cumulatively since the beginning of the year.

Moreover, the wholesale price of eight staple aquatic products dropped for the third week in a row, down 0.1 percent last week as spring is typically a peak time for fishing.

However, edible oil prices continued to rise last week. Prices of peanut oil and soybean oil gained 0.4 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively.

Food prices have a one-third weighting in the calculation of China's consumer price index (CPI), the major gauge of inflation. The CPI rebounded to 3.6 percent in March, after easing to a 20-month low of 3.2 percent in February.