China's consumer inflation rate remained at a near five-year low in October at 1.6 percent from a year earlier, official data showed Monday.
The consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, unchanged from September's reading, which marked the lowest rate since January 2010, when it increased 1.5 percent on the year, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement.
The index was far below the government's inflation target of 3.5 percent for this year.
Food prices, which account for a third of the basket of goods in China's CPI calculation, rose 2.5 percent year-on-year in October, compared with 2.3 percent in September.
The producer price index, a key gauge of inflation at the wholesale level, fell 2.2 percent in October from the year before, following the 1.8-percent drop in September "Higher food prices were the main contributor to CPI growth last month," said Yu Qiumei, senior statistician of the bureau, according to state-run Xinhua News Agency.
The food inflation was offset by easing non-food inflation, which mainly came from falling fuel prices.
"The price of gasoline and diesel dropped 5.6 percent and 7.8 percent year on year, respectively, as a result of China's cuts in the retail price of gasoline and diesel amid falling global commodity prices," Yu said.