A woman walks by a sale advertising poster in Beijing, capital of China, May 11, 2010. [Xinhua]

China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 3.1 percent year on year in May, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Friday.

The May figure was up 0.3 percentage point from April's year on year inflation at 2.8 percent. It also surpassed the central government's 3 percent whole-year inflation goal.

Taking the first five months together, China's CPI rose 2.5 percent year on year during the period.

The producer price index (PPI), a major measure of inflation at the wholesale level, grew 7.1 percent year on year in May, up 0.3 percentage point from April's 6.8 percent.

In May, consumer prices in China's urban areas increased 2.9 percent and in rural regions by 3.3 percent. Food prices, which accounted for about a third of the weighting in calculating the CPI, gained 6.1 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.

(Xinhua News Agency June 11, 2010)