China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, registered a year-on-year increase of 1.5 percent in January 2010, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Thursday.

The figure represents the third consecutive month of modest growth in the indicator after nine months of negative growth up until November 2009.

The indicator rose rose 1.9 percent last December.

A closer look at the January figure shows that food prices were up 3.7 percent last month year-on-year, with non-food prices edging up 0.5 percent from a year earlier.

The NBS also released statistics on the producer price index (PPI), another measure of inflation at the wholesale level.

The country's PPI rose 4.3 percent in January from a year earlier, quickening from a 1.7 percent increase last December, when the indicator finally emerged from 12 months of negative growth.

In breakdown, the purchase price of raw materials and fuel in January were up 8 percent from a year earlier.

The bureau also release statistics related to the country's accelerating housing prices.

The average price of houses sold in seventy large and medium-sized cities rose 9.5 percent from a year earlier, 1.7 percentage points higher than the 7.8 percent growth registered in December 2009.

Links and Sources
National Bureau of Statistics: Report (Chinese)