BEIJING, Sept. 11 -- China's producer price index (PPI), which measures inflation at wholesale level, dropped 1.2 percent year on year in August, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday.

The PPI declined for a 30th straight month and in a faster pace than the previous month, marking existing pressures from the slowing economic growth.

The PPI dropped 0.9 percent from a year ago in July, down from 1.1 percent in June, 1.4 percent in May, data showed.

Factory prices of production materials declined 1.7 percent in August, contributing 1.3 percentage points to the PPI drop, while factory prices for consumer goods gained 0.2 percent.

In the first eight months, the country's PPI dropped by 1.6 percent year on year, unchanged with the Jan.-July period, the data showed.