China consumer inflation eases to 0.8% in Feb

BEIJING - China's consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, grew 0.8 percent year on year in February, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Thursday.

The pace, substantially below market expectation of 1.7 percent, slowed from a growth of 2.5 percent in January.

China's producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, rose 7.8 percent year on year in February.

The growth pace quickened from the reading of 6.9 percent registered in January, according to the NBS.

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Key development targets in 2017 on the Government Work Report, chinadaily.com.cn

1 GDP growth of around 6.5 percent, or higher if possible in practice

2 CPI increase kept at around 3 percent

3 Over 11 million new urban jobs, and a registered urban unemployment rate within 4.5 percent

4 A steady rise in import and export volumes, and a basic balance in international payments

5 Increases in personal income basically in step with economic growth

6 A reduction of at least 3.4 percent in energy consumption per unit of GDP, and continued reductions in the release of major pollutants