BEIJING — China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 2.9 percent year-on-year in 2019, within government target of 3 percent, official data showed on Jan 9.

The growth picked up from 2.8 percent in the first 11 months, and was above the 2.1-percent annual increase in 2018, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

In December, the CPI climbed 4.5 percent year-on-year, unchanged from that in November.

The hike was mainly driven by food prices, which soared 17.4 percent year-on-year last month, contributing 3.43 percentage points to the increase in December.

Pork prices surged 97 percent year-on-year in December, slowing from the 110.2-percent growth seen in November. Prices of other kinds of protein including beef, mutton and poultry saw slower growth last month.

Non-food prices gained 1.3 percent last month, faster than the 1-percent growth in November, the bureau said.

The CPI in urban and rural areas posted a year-on-year growth of 4.2 percent and 5.3 percent, respectively.

The core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, ticked up 1.4 percent year-on-year in December, flat with that in November.

The data released on Jan 9 also showed that China's producer price index, which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, dropped 0.3 percent year-on-year in 2019.