BEIJING, March 9 -- China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 1.3 percent year on year last month, official data showed on Monday.

The core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, increased 1.8 percent year on year, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

On a month-on-month basis, CPI went up 1 percent in February, the data revealed.

Monday's data also showed that the producer price index, which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, went down 0.9 percent year on year last month, with the decline narrowing continuously, according to the NBS.