In the first four months of this year, the index rose by 3.84% year-on-year, mainly due to increases in prices of education, housing and construction materials, culture, entertainment and tourism, food, and electricity. In April, seven out of the 11 groups of main consumer goods and services witnessed price decreases, and the remainders saw rises. Notably, a 0.38% fall in the price of food and catering services caused a decline of 0.13 percentage point of the CPI. Gold prices in April were up 2.04% month-on-month, but down 1.09% year-on-year. In the January-April period, the prices rose by 0.66% year-on-year. Meanwhile, the USD price in April fell 0.89% month-on-month, but rose by 2.5% year-on-year, leading to a year-on-year increase of 3.21% in the first four months of this year./.