China's consumer inflation eases to seven-month low

China's inflation fell to its slowest pace in seven months, in October, due to a high comparison base and softer consumer demand, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday.

The country's consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, rose by 2.1 percent year-on-year in October, a seven-month low, down from 2.8 percent in September, the NBS data showed.

Compared with a year ago, food prices increased 7 percent, down from 8.8 percent in September, as the comparison base rose, vegetables, fruits and aquatic products came into the market in large numbers while consumer demand fell after the National Day holiday, the bureau said.

On a month-on-month basis, the CPI growth also slowed to 0.1 percent, compared with 0.3 percent in September.

The growth in core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices and is deemed as a better gauge of the supply-demand relationship in the economy, came in at 0.6 percent year-on-year, the same as a month earlier.

Meanwhile, China's producer price index, which gauges factory-gate prices, declined by 1.3 percent from a year ago in October, following a 0.9 percent rise in September, marking the first negative PPI growth in almost two years, according to the NBS.

The bureau mainly attributed the fall in producer prices to last year's high comparison base, adding that the PPI rose by 0.2 percent on a monthly basis in October as demand increased in some industries, following a 0.1 percent decline in September.