BEIJING — China’s producer prices continued to fall in July, pointing to looming deflation risk, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Aug 9.

The producer price index (PPI), a measure of costs for goods at the factory gate, fell 5.4 percent year on year in July, widening from the 4.8-percent drop seen a month earlier.

The July reading dipped to the lowest level since the end of 2009 and marked the 41st straight month of decline.

Specifically, prices of production materials fell 6.9 percent, while those of consumer goods edged down 0.3 percent.

For the first seven months, PPI averaged at a 4.7-percent drop year on year. On a monthly basis, the index went down 0.7 percent in July.

NBS statistician Yu Qiumei attributed the PPI contraction mainly to dropping prices of industrial products and decreasing costs for oil and natural gas production.