BEIJING — China's consumer inflation fell in February due to base effects, while factory-gate prices picked up on the back of buoyant economic activities, official data showed on March 10.

The consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, declined 0.2 percent year-on-year in February due to a high comparison base last year, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Food prices went down 0.2 percent year-on-year, dragging down consumer inflation by 0.05 percentage points.

The decline was largely driven by the carryover effect as the COVID-19 outbreak boosted prices of consumer goods in February last year and resulted in a higher base.

The carryover effect sent the CPI inflation down by 1.8 percentage points, while new price increases pulled the growth up by 1.6 percentage points, the NBS data showed.

On a monthly basis, the CPI gained 0.6 percent, with food prices up 1.6 percent due to rising demand and increasing logistics cost during the Spring Festival, which fell in February this year, noted Dong Lijuan, a senior statistician with the NBS.

China has set its consumer inflation target at around 3 percent for the year of 2021, according to a government work report submitted on March 5 to the national legislature for deliberation.

The data on March 10 also showed China's producer prices, which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, rose 1.7 percent year-on-year in February on top of a 0.3-percent rise in January.