China's January CPI up 4.5%, PPI 0.7%

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China's consumer price index (CPI) rose 4.5 percent year-on-year in January. [CFP]

China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 4.5 percent year-on-year in January, the highest growth rate in three months, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Thursday.

January's CPI growth accelerated from the 4.1 percent in December and the 4.2 percent in November.

Food prices, which account for nearly one third of the basket of goods in the nation's CPI calculation, increased by 10.5 percent in January from one year earlier and contributed to 3.29 percentage points in January's CPI rise.

On a monthly basis, the country's CPI increased 1.5 percent in January, the NBS said.

Although the unexpected rebound severed a months-long decline from a 37-month high of 6.5 percent in July, it will not change the CPI's downward trend for the whole year, analysts said.

The CPI increase, which was mainly boosted by food price surges in January amid the traditional Chinese Lunar New Year holiday, will see a remarkable pull-back in February, said Lian Ping, chief economist at the Bank of Communications.

The Producer Price Index (PPI), a measurement of inflation at the wholesale level, up 0.7 percent in January year-on-year, the lowest since December 2009, said the NBS.

The growth rate eased further from December's 1.7-percent growth, as most of the country's factories suspended production during the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday.

On a month-on-month basis, China's January PPI fell 0.1 percent from December, according to the NBS.

Producer purchase prices grew 2 percent year-on-year in January and were down 0.3 percent from a month ago, said the NBS.