China’s factory-gate inflation hit a record high in October, while consumer prices rose slightly amid public concern over food shortages, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Wednesday. 

The country’s official producer price index (PPI), which reflects the prices factories charge wholesalers for their products, rose by 13.5 percent in October from a year earlier, hitting the highest level since the compiling of data began in October 1996. 

PPI growth in October was 2.8 percentage points higher than that in September, and above the 12.3 percent predicted by Bloomberg. 

NBS data on Wednesday also showed that China’s consumer price index (CPI), a major gauge of inflation, went up by 1.5 percent in October from a year ago, up from 0.7 percent in September. 

This was above the 1.4-percent gain estimated by Bloomberg. 

‘In October, affected by factors such as special weather, contradictions between supply and demand of some commodities as well as rising costs, CPI rose slightly,’ said Dong Lijuan, a senior statistician with the NBS.

As a key component of the country’s CPI, pork prices dropped 44 percent year on year, compared with a 46.9-percent plunge in September. China has been buying up pork to support prices that declined earlier this year and resulted in heavy losses for farmers. 

Food prices dropped by 2.4 percent year on year in October, up from a drop of 5.2 percent in September, while non-food prices increased by 2.4 percent last month, up from a rise of 2 percent in September, according to NBS data.

Core inflation that excludes volatile food and energy prices registered a growth of 1.3 percent in October, up from an increase of 1.2 percent in September.

China has set a CPI growth target of around 3 percent this year, compared with about 3.5 percent last year.