China releases February's CPI and PPI

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China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose by 1.5 percent year on year in February, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Saturday. China had set the CPI target for 2019 at 3 percent.

The increase was down from 1.7 percent for January.

Food prices climbed 0.7 percent year on year last month, down 1.2 percentage points from January, according to the NBS. Non-food prices gained 1.7 percent, the same growth as that in January.

The CPI in urban areas increased 1.5 percent, while that in the countryside ticked up by 1.4 percent.

On a month-on-month basis, the CPI went up 1 percent in February, the NBS said.

The country's producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, edged up 0.1 percent year on year in February, which was unchanged from the growth recorded last month, according to NBS.

The PPI of means of production edged down 0.1 percent year on year last month, while that of means of livelihood edged up 0.4 percent, according to the NBS.

On a month-on-month basis, the country's PPI slipped 0.1 percent in February, a milder decline than the 0.6-percent drop recorded in January.

Of major industrial sectors, the PPI in oil and natural gas exploration rose 5 percent from one month earlier.

The PPI for cement manufacturing dipped 2.3 percent from January.

Last year, China's PPI rose 3.5 percent, down from the 6.3-percent growth in 2017.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency