China's producer prices up 0.1% in January

China's producer price index which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, rose 0.1 percent year on year in January, the National Bureau of Statistics said Monday.

The slight increase last month was the first year-on-year increase in eight months, the NBS data showed.

On a month-on-month basis, the PPI remained flat for the second month in a row, according to the NBS.

Factory prices of capital goods decreased 0.4 percent year on year in January, shrinking from the 1.2 percent decline in December.

Seventeen of the 40 surveyed industries saw price hikes month on month, while 18 reported price drops and five witnessed unchanged prices.

Among major industries, oil and natural gas extraction saw faster price increase in January, with prices up 17.5 percent year on year, expanding by 11.7 percentage points.

Prices for non-ferrous metal mining and dressing edged up 2.4 percent year on year, while ferrous metal mining and dressing went up 0.7 percent over one year ago in January.

NBS senior statistician Dong Lijuan said the 0.1 percent year-on-year gain in January was the carry-over effect of last year's price movements.

Monday's data also showed China's consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, rose 5.4 percent year on year in January.