China's factory gate prices down 0.7% in December

China's producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, went down 0.7 percent year on year in December of 2022, the National Bureau of Statistics said Thursday.

The decrease was narrowed by 0.6 percentage points from that registered in November. On a monthly basis, China's PPI edged down 0.5 percent in December, according to the NBS.

The narrowed year-on-year decrease in December was due to the lower comparison base in the same period last year, while declining oil prices have led to the monthly PPI decrease in December, said senior NBS statistician Dong Lijuan.

China's PPI went up 4.1 percent year on year in 2022, NBS data showed.

Thursday's data also showed that China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 1.8 percent year on year in December of 2022. For the whole year of 2022, the CPI rose 2 percent year on year.