China's producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, rose 4.1 percent year on year in August, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Monday.
The growth was down from the 4.6-percent rise in July.
NBS statistician Sheng Guoqing said the carryover effect contributed 3 percentage points to the 4.1-percent year-on-year PPI growth, and new factors that push up prices contributed 1.1 percentage points.
On a monthly basis, PPI edged up 0.4 percent in August, picking up from 0.1 percent in July.
For the first eight months of the year, PPI climbed 4 percent from the previous year.
Raw material prices went up 7.8 percent year on year last month, compared with a rise of 9 percent in July.
Of all industrial sectors, producer prices in oil and natural gas exploration surged 39.6 percent from the previous year, with oil, coal and other fuel production at 22.7 percent and ferrous metal processing increasing 9.5 percent. The pace of increases all decelerated from the preceding month.
Monday's data also showed the country's consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, rose 2.3 percent year on year in August, a pick-up from 2.1 percent in July.
