1st LD-Writethru: China's producer price up 4.3 pct in January

BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- China's producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, rose 4.3 percent year on year in January, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday.

It was down from a growth of 4.9 percent recorded in December, according to the bureau.

Compared with a year ago, raw materials costs rose 5.7 percent, accounting for the lion's share of the PPI growth in January.

On a monthly basis, the index was up 0.3 percent, down from 0.8 percent in the previous month.

Compared with a month ago, prices rose fastest in raw materials and minerals.

For the whole year of 2017, PPI climbed 6.3 percent compared with a 1.4-percent drop in 2016, ending decline for the previous five years.

The PPI figures came alongside the release of the consumer price index, which rose 1.5 percent year on year in January. Enditem