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Consumers shop for goods in a supermarket in Shijiazhuang, North China's Hebei Province. Photo: VCG

China's consumer price index (CPI) rose by 0.5 percent year-on-year in January, up from a 0.1-percent increase in December, showing moderate growth in consumer price levels, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Sunday. 

The CPI in January rose at the fastest pace in five months. The NBS attributed the growth mainly to the brisk consumption seen in the recently concluded Spring Festival holidays.

The CPI, a key gauge of inflation, turned from flat to a 0.7-percent month-on-month increase. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, has risen for four consecutive months, according to the NBS.

Services and food prices led the month-on-month rise in the CPI in January. Services rose 0.9 percent, up 0.8 percentage points from December, contributing about 0.37 percentage points to the overall CPI increase in the month.

Within all services, airfares, vehicle rentals, tourism charges and cinema ticket prices rose significantly during the eight-day Spring Festival holidays, pushing up the CPI by about 0.28 percentage points, the NBS said. 

The rise of consumption during the Spring Festival holidays was the main factor driving the CPI increase, and policies to boost overall social demand have also shown effect, Zhou Rong, a senior researcher at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Recently introduced policies to stimulate consumption, such as the expanded trade-in programs for consumer goods, are continuously taking effect, Zou said, adding that the interplay of short- and long-term measures has promoted recovery and growth in the consumer market.

In one example, China's domestic film market was vibrant during the holidays, with figures from film data platform Maoyan showing that the total box office for new releases had surpassed 13 billion yuan ($1.78 billion) as of Sunday. Notably, Ne Zha 2, a Chinese animated blockbuster, became the world's highest-grossing film in a single market during the holidays. 

Food prices rose due to the holiday demand and cooler weather. According to the NBS, prices of fresh vegetables rose 5.9 percent month-on-month, fresh fruits climbed 3.3 percent month-on-month and aquatic products went up 2.7 percent month-on-month. 

China's producer price index (PPI), which measures factory-gate prices, declined by 2.3 percent year-on-year in January. The NBS attributed the drop to seasonal declines in industrial activity during the Spring Festival holidays. On a month-on-month basis, the PPI slipped 0.2 percent, NBS data showed.