Prices for goods at the factory gate in China jumped in March, the government said Wednesday, in a positive sign of strengthening demand for the world's second-largest economy.

The producer price index (PPI) rose 7.6 percent year-on-year in March, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, slightly beating economist expectations of a 7.5 percent increase in a Bloomberg New survey.

The consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.9 percent in the month, the data showed, beating a Bloomberg analysis that forecast a 0.8 percent increase.