BEIJING, March 9 -- China's producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, went down 2.2 percent year on year in February, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Sunday.

The decline in February was 0.1 percentage points less than the previous month, the NBS data showed. In February, prices for means of production decreased 2.5 percent year on year.

On a month-on-month basis, the PPI dropped 0.1 percent in February, according to the NBS data.

From January to February, on average, the PPI decreased by 2.2 percent over the same period last year.

In February, the purchasing price of industrial products dropped by 2.3 percent year on year, the NBS data showed.