BEIJING — China’s producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, rose 6.9 percent year on year in October, data showed on Nov 9.

The pace of PPI was unchanged from September. On a month-on-month basis, the index was up 0.7 percent from September, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

In the first ten months of the year, PPI climbed 6.5 percent from one year earlier, staying flat with the reading in the January-September period.

Factory-gate prices in the oil and gas extraction industry, and oil processing industry went up 5.1 percent and 3.2 percent respectively from a month earlier, noted NBS senior statistician Sheng Guoqing.

“Factors including expected lower prices of steel and coal will drag down PPI in November with the index likely to register 5.2-percent growth”, said Jiang Chao, a senior researcher at Haitong Securities.

The PPI figures came alongside the release of the consumer price index, which rose 1.9 percent year on year in October.