Rising prices pressure shoppers

On a monthly basis, the PPI rose 0.2 percent in September, up slightly from a 0.1-percent increase for August, a positive sign of recovery industrial producers.

"Demand for steel-related products has increased slightly since August, compared with the beginning of the year, which was extremely gloomy with very few orders," said Zhang Weizhong, the general manager of Shanghai Kaike Pipe Industry Co Ltd.

Zhang's company has regular dealings with large State-owned companies such as China National Petroleum Corp, the nation's largest oil and gas producer and supplier and China Petrochemical Corp, a large petroleum and petrochemical group.

"The competition turned to be tougher compared with previous years as the government had fewer projects launched and postponed certain projects to lower fiscal expenditures, given slower economic growth," said Zhang.

Zhang added that there wouldn't be any broad-based, obvious improvement for the year, but things would definitely bounce back when delayed projects resumed in the following year.

The NBS figures show that both the ex-factory prices of products and the purchase cost of materials were up 0.2 percent, against a gain of 0.1 percent in August.

"I've received the latest quarterly report from my clients in Europe (showing) that sales increased nearly 10 percent compared with the previous year, which would have an effect on future orders very soon," said Chen Xi, manager of Wenzhou Dongyi Shoes Co Ltd.

To stand out amid tough industry competition, Chen has managed to raise prices for products with more added-value elements such as design and technical manufacturing processes.