China's producer prices down 1.2 pct in September

BEIJING, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- China's producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, dropped 1.2 percent year on year in September, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Tuesday.

The reading expanded from the 0.8-percent decline in August, the NBS data showed.

On a monthly basis, the PPI rose 0.1 percent last month, bucking the trend of the 0.1-percent drop in August, according to the NBS.

In the first nine months, the PPI on average was unchanged from that in the same period last year.

Factory prices of production materials decreased 2 percent year on year in September, expanding from the 1.3-percent decline in August.