(Yicai) Oct. 14 -- China's consumer inflation edged up for the eighth consecutive month in September, while increasing at the slowest pace since June.

The consumer price index rose 0.4 percent last month from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday. Inflation climbed 0.6 percent in August, the most since February.

September’s slower rate of increase was mainly due to the higher base of comparison a year ago, said Dong Lijuan, a chief statistician at the NBS. On a monthly basis, the CPI was unchanged on the prior month, according to the NBS.

Food prices increased 3.3 percent, compared with a 2.8 percent gain in August, contributing about 0.61 percentage point to the year-on-year increase in the CPI. Non-food prices inched down 0.2 percent versus a 0.2 percent gain in the prior month, weighing on the CPI by about 0.19 point.

Among non-food items, energy prices fell 3.5 percent after dropping 1.5 percent in August, while the increase in service prices narrowed 0.3 point to 0.2 percent. Tourism prices fell 2.1 percent after a 0.9 percent jump the month before, with airfares down 14.1 percent and hotel prices 5.6 percent lower.

Factory-Gate Prices

Producer prices, an indicator of corporate profitability, fell for the 24th consecutive month and by the most since March, mainly impacted by fluctuations in commodity prices on international markets and insufficient domestic demand.

The producer price index dipped 2.8 percent last month from a year earlier, compared with a decline of 1.8 percent in August, according to the NBS. The figure edged down 0.6 percent month on month, narrowing from a 0.7 percent drop the month before.

The PPI may fall about 2.4 percent in this quarter, according to Wu Chaoming, deputy director of the Chasing International Economic Institute.

Geopolitical risks have pushed up international oil prices, but the increase has been significantly weaker than in the past, noted Wu Ge, chief economist at Changjiang Securities. Domestic policy measures will give only a limited boost to the economy this year, with prices of industrial products still facing downward risks in the long run, Wu added.

Editors: Shi Yi, Martin Kadiev