BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) -- China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 1.3 percent year on year last month, driven by the effects of the Spring Festival holiday, official data showed on Monday.

The core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, increased 1.8 percent year on year, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Monday's data also revealed that the producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, went down 0.9 percent year on year last month, with the decline narrowing continuously, the NBS noted.

This narrowing was driven by a rise in global commodity prices, rapid demand growth in certain domestic industries, and the continued effectiveness of macroeconomic policies, NBS statistician Dong Lijuan explained.

Compared with the same period last year, affected by the shift of the Spring Festival and the recovery of consumption demand, the rise of CPI in February expanded to 1.3 percent from the 0.2-percent gain recorded in the previous month, marking the highest increase in nearly three years, Dong pointed out.

A closer look shows that service prices rose by 1.6 percent in February, with the growth rate expanding by 1.5 percentage points from the previous month, contributing approximately 0.75 percentage points to the year-on-year CPI increase.

In the service sector, prices of airline tickets, transportation rentals, travel agency fees and hotel accommodation respectively increased by 29.1 percent, 19.8 percent, 12.5 percent and 5.4 percent in February.

Prices of pet services, vehicle repair and maintenance, household services and food deliveries rose by 13 percent, 12 percent, 6.3 percent and 5.6 percent, respectively, last month.

Prices of fresh vegetables, beef, mutton and fresh fruits increased by 5.9 percent to 10.9 percent in February, with the increase wider than that seen in the previous month. Together, these food price increases contributed roughly 0.41 percentage points to the year-on-year rise in the CPI.

On a month-on-month basis, CPI went up 1 percent in February from the 0.2-percent gain in the previous month, the highest in nearly two years, the data revealed.

Industrial consumer goods prices rose by 0.4 percent, an increase of 0.1 percentage points compared with the previous month.

Notably, domestic gold jewelry prices increased by 6.2 percent due to an upward trend in international gold prices. The impact of international geopolitical conflicts on energy prices also became evident in February, leading to a 3.1-percent rise in domestic gasoline prices. Together, these two factors contributed about 0.12 percentage points to the month-on-month increase in the CPI.

Compared with the same period last year, China's PPI declined by 0.9 percent, with the rate of decrease narrowing by 0.5 percentage points from the previous month, marking three consecutive months of reduced decline.

The integrated effects of domestic macroeconomic policies continued to manifest last month, with prices in certain industries showing positive changes, Dong said.

The "AI Plus" initiative developed vibrantly, as prices of electronic components and specialized electronic materials manufacturing rose by 4.9 percent, prices of micro-motor control machines increased by 1.6 percent, and prices of service consumption robot manufacturing grew by 0.7 percent.

The green transition advanced steadily, with biomass fuel processing prices up by 3.2 percent and prices of environmental protection specialized equipment manufacturing rising by 0.6 percent.

High-end equipment maintained robust growth, seeing aircraft manufacturing prices increasing by 7.7 percent in February.

The PPI, meanwhile, increased by 0.4 percent month on month, according to the NBS data.

China's PPI has increased on a monthly basis for five consecutive months, Dong said, noting that this trend has been fueled, in particular in February, by the upward trend of international non-ferrous metal and crude oil prices that drove up prices of related domestic industries, and the growth of computing power which also increased demand in some industries and resulted in corresponding price increases.