China consumer prices drop in Nov

China's consumer prices fell for a second consecutive month in November while factory-gate prices declined at a faster pace, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Saturday.

The country's consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, dipped by 0.5 percent year-on-year in November, the NBS said, after a 0.2 percent drop in October. 

Dong Lijuan, an NBS statistician, said the decline is mainly due to the drop in prices of food and energy. 

Food prices fell 4.2 percent year-on-year in November, compared with a 4 percent drop in October. The decline in pork prices, in particular, widened from 30.1 percent in October to 31.8 percent in November. 

Non-food prices increased by 0.4 percent year-on-year in November, down from a 0.7 percent rise in October. And the energy prices dropped by 1.3 percent in November after a 1.2 percent rise in October. 

On a month-on-month basis, the CPI fell by 0.5 percent, versus a 0.1 percent decline in October. 

The growth in core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices and is deemed a better gauge of the supply-demand relationship in the economy, came in at 0.6 percent year-on-year in November, the same as October. 

Meanwhile, China's producer price index, which gauges factory-gate prices, dropped by 3 percent from a year ago in November, following a 2.6 percent fall in October, the NBS said. 

Dong said the wider PPI decline was affected by factors including declining international prices of oil and lackluster demand for some industrial products.

On a month-on-month basis, the PPI dipped by 0.3 percent, after a flat reading in October, according to the NBS. 

ouyangshijia@chinadaily.com.cn