China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 4.5 per cent year on year in November, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Tuesday.
The growth rate, which was up from 3.8 per cent in October, was the highest so far this year.
Food prices grew 19.1 per cent year on year last month, up from 15.5 per cent in October, while non-food prices gained 1 per cent, 0.1 per centage points higher than that of October.
Pork prices rose 110.2 per cent year on year, contributing 2.64 per centage points to the 4.5-per cent CPI growth. As the pork supply is restoring, the month-on-month growth rate of pork prices in November was 3.8 per cent, down 16.3 per centage points from October.
On the stronger consumption demand and the needs for substitutes, prices of beef, mutton, chicken and duck registered month-on-month increases in November, ranging from 1.3 per cent to 4.3 per cent, said NBS senior statistician Shen Yun.
As government measures at national and local levels to restore hog production started to take effect, the soaring trend of pork prices affected by African swine fever and cyclical factors has softened in the past weeks.
In November, prices of vegetables rose 3.9 per cent year on year while prices of fruits fell 6.8 per cent year on year. Meanwhile, transportation and communications prices slipped 2.8 per cent.
The CPI in urban and rural areas posted a year-on-year growth of 4.2 per cent and 5.5 per cent, respectively.
Consumer prices in the first 11 months rose by an average of 2.8 per cent from a year earlier, the bureau said.
Tuesday's data also showed that China's producer price index, which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, dropped 1.4 per cent year on year in November.
