China's February PPI Falls 1.6 Pct

BEIJING, March 11 -- China's producer price index (PPI), which measures inflation at the wholesale level, fell 1.6 percent year on year in February, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Saturday.

The drop marked the 12th straight month of declines after the PPI dropped in March 2012 for the first time since December 2009.

The decline rate stayed the same with the 1.6-percent drop seen in January, and on a monthly basis, the PPI gained 0.2 percent, the NBS data showed.

The data came along with the release of the consumer price index, a key gauge of inflation, which hit a 10-month high of 3.2 percent last month on accounts of rising food prices during the Spring Festival holiday season.