(MENAFN- QNA) China's producer price index (PPI), which measures inflation at wholesale level, dropped 1.8% year on year in September, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Wednesday.
The PPI declined for the 31st straight month and at a faster pace than the previous month, indicating shrinking demand and rising production overcapacity amid slowing economic growth.
Yu Qiumei, senior statistician of the NBS, attributed the decline in September to price dives in crude oil, refined oil and steel.
Factory prices of production materials went down 2.4% in September, contributing 1.8 percentage points to the PPI drop, while factory prices for consumer goods gained 0.1%.
In the first nine months, the country's PPI dropped 1.6% year on year, China's News Agency (Xinhua) reported.
In the previous months, the PPI dropped 1.2% year on year in August, 0.9% year on year in July, 1.1% in June, 1.4% in May, 2% in April and 2.3% in March.
"The PPI drop rate continues to expand, indicating the task of digesting production overcapacity is huge," said Wang Jun, a researcher at the China Center for International Economic Exchange, adding that the downward pressure for China's economy has not been relieved and the foundation for economic recovery is fragile.
The data came along with the growth in China's consumer inflation, which slowed more sharply than expected to 1.6% in September.
They followed Monday's data that China's exports saw the fastest growth in 19 months, up 15.3% from a year ago to 213.7 billion US dollars in September.
The NBS is scheduled to release quarterly GDP data next week.
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