BEIJING — China's producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, dropped 3.7 percent year-on-year in May, the National Bureau of Statistics said on June 10.

The decline widened from the 3.1-percent decrease in April, NBS data showed.

On a month-on-month basis, the PPI fell 0.4 percent last month, narrowing from the 1.3-percent drop in April, according to the NBS.

For the first five months, the PPI on average went down 1.7 percent from the same period last year.

Factory prices of production materials lost 5.1 percent year-on-year in May, dragging down the overall PPI level by 3.79 percentage points, said the NBS.

The PPI data came along with the release of the consumer price index, which rose 2.4 percent year-on-year in May, easing from the 3.3-percent growth in April.