A citizen selects Chinese cabbage at a market in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, May 5, 2012. China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, slowed to 3.0 percent year-on-year in May, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Saturday. It marked a 17-month-low, easing from April's 3.4 percent and 3.6 percent in March. (Xinhua/Huang Xiaobang)

Farm produce prices fell for five straight weeks between May 28 and June 3. Although the prices of garlic and egg surged due to dwindling output and bad weather, vegetable and pork prices have fallen remarkably, the Ministry of Commerce said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, China's Producer Price Index (PPI), a main gauge of inflation at the wholesale level, fell 1.4 percent in May from a year earlier in response to falling global commodity prices.

It fell deeper than April's 0.7 percent, and marked another month of decline yea on year after China's PPI saw a drop in March for the first time since December 2009, NBS data showed.

Liu Yuanchun, vice president of the School of Economics at Renmin University of China, said May's CPI reading beat market forecast of 3.1 percent to 3.2 percent.

He attributed the reason for the lower-than-expected data to waning effects of imported inflation and lackluster domestic demand.

He expected the economy to rebound after hitting the bottom of the year in the second quarter. Domestic demand will then pick up which could stop consumer prices falling. But dropping global commodity prices will continue to weigh on the domestic prices.