China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, edged up 0.1 percent year on year in March, official data showed on Thursday.

That was below the 0.4 percent gain forecast by a Bloomberg poll of analysts.

On a monthly basis, the nation's CPI went down 1 percent in March, said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS),

The core CPI, deducting food and energy prices, went up 0.6 percent year on year last month, maintaining a mild increase, according to the NBS.

The figure represented a slower rate of growth from 0.7 percent in February when consumer prices emphatically bucked a deflationary trend stretching back to August.

"In March, under the impact of factors such as the seasonal decline in consumer demand after the holidays and the overall sufficient market supply, the increase in the nationwide CPI... somewhat declined," the NBS said.

The slowdown "indicates that China still faces the risk of deflation, as domestic demand remains weak", said Zhang Zhiwei, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management. (Xinhua/AFP)