China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 1.3% year-on-year in February, official data showed on Monday.

Core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, increased 1.8% year-on-year, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

On a month-on-month basis, the CPI rose by 1% in February, up from 0.2% the previous month — the highest increase in two years, the data revealed.

This was primarily due to a surge in consumer demand during the extended Spring Festival holiday, resulting in a significant uptick in service prices, said Dong Lijuan, a statistician at the NBS.

Monday's data also showed that the producer price index (PPI), which measures cost of goods at the factory gate, went down 0.9% year-on-year last month, with the decline narrowing continuously, according to the NBS.

(Source: Xinhua News Agency; Cover via VCG)