China's factory gate prices rise in November

BEIJING, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- China's factory gate prices saw a slower expansion in November due to greater efforts to implement policies to ensure supply and stabilize prices of energy and raw materials, official data showed Thursday.

The producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, went up 12.9 percent year on year in November, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed.

The figure shrunk from the 13.5 percent year-on-year increase registered in October.

Specifically, the growth momentum in prices of production materials was slowing down last month, as the year-on-year growth rate dipped 0.9 percentage points from October to 17 percent, said senior NBS statistician Dong Lijuan.

Measures adopted by multiple departments to contain coal prices helped propel both the coal output and market supply to further grow, Dong said, adding that prices for coal mining and washing industry reversed the upward trend with a 4.9 percent month-on-month decline in November.

Against the backdrop of high prices of international crude oil and natural gas, the domestic oil-related industries saw rising prices with the PPI for the oil exploitation sector up 7.1 percent from a month ago, Dong said, adding that among the 40 surveyed industrial sectors, 37 reported year-on-year price rises.

Thursday's data also showed that China's consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, rose 2.3 percent year on year in November.