China's producer prices up 0.1% in January

BEIJING -- China's producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, rose 0.1 percent year-on-year in January, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Monday.

The slight increase last month was the first year-on-year increase in eight months, the NBS data showed.

On a month-on-month basis, the PPI remained flat for the second month in a row, according to the NBS.

Factory prices of capital goods decreased 0.4 percent year-on-year in January, shrinking from the 1.2 percent decline in December.

Seventeen of the 40 surveyed industries saw price hikes month-on-month, while 18 reported price drops and five witnessed unchanged prices.

Among major industries, oil and natural gas extraction saw faster price increase in January, with prices up 17.5 percent year-on-year, expanding by 11.7 percentage points.

Prices for non-ferrous metal mining and dressing edged up 2.4 percent year-on-year, while ferrous metal mining and dressing went up 0.7 percent over one year ago in January.

NBS senior statistician Dong Lijuan said the 0.1 percent year-on-year gain in January was the carry-over effect of last year's price movements.

Monday's data also showed China's consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, rose 5.4 percent year-on-year in January.