China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 1.5 percent year on year in January 2010, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Thursday.

Food prices went up 3.7 percent last month year on year, with non-food prices edging up 0.5 percent from a year earlier.

The figure advanced 0.6 percent in November 2009, ending nine months of decline.

China's CPI in January was 0.6 percent up compared with last December, with food prices up 1.8 percent month on month in January, said the NBS.

China's CPI rose 1.9 percent year on year in December last year, as freezing weather since November helped push up food prices.

The producer price index (PPI), a major measure of inflation at the wholesale level, rose 4.3 percent in January from a year earlier, quickening from 1.7 percent in December 2009 when the figure ended 12 months of decline.

(Xinhua News Agency February 11, 2010)