China inflation soars

The country's consumer price index rose 6.5pc compared with a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.

The figure is expected to fuel concern among policymakers who are fretting about inflation's potential to trigger social unrest.

China has been struggling to tame inflation despite restricting the amount of money banks can lend on numerous occasions and hiking interest rates five times since October.

Some analysts are concerned that China might go too far and trigger a sharp slowdown in the world's second-largest economy -- which could have dire consequences for the global economy.