A Green Paper on the Rural Economy estimates a 9 percent rise in prices for agricultural produce this year, Beijing Times reported Wednesday.

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Grain prices will rise 10 percent, according to the Green Paper jointly issued by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday.

China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 5.4 percent in March from year ago. According to NBS, that is a 32-month high.

Food prices, which accounted for a third of the basket of goods in China's CPI calculation, surged 11 percent year-on-year, according to the NBS data.