China´s consumer price index (CPI) jumped 6.9 percent in November over the same month last year due to food price increases, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Tuesday.

It was the biggest monthly rise this year and an increase of 6.5 percent over October this year, leveling the 33-month high recorded in August.

"The latest figure indicates accelerating inflation pressure," NBS chief economist Yao Jingyuan told Xinhua. He said price jumps for foodstuffs, which have a weight of 33 percent in China´s CPI, and oil price increases were the major driving forces behind the rise.

Food prices ballooned 18.2 percent in November from a year earlier, compared with 17.6 percent in October.

The bureau said food prices drove up the November CPI figure by 5.94 percentage points.

Grain prices rose 6.6 percent over the same period last year, while cooking oil prices increased 35 percent.

Pork prices, blamed for the recent increase in CPI figures, soared 56 percent.

Non-food prices, however, rose only 1.4 percent, according to the bureau.

The accumulative increase of the main inflation gauge reached 4.6 percent in the first 11 months, the bureau said.

China´s consumer price index was forecasted to be around 4.7 percent for the whole year. It would be the highest yearly figure since 1997, Yao said.

The prediction was higher than the 4.5 percent to 4.6 percent forecast made by the country´s top statistician, Xie Fuzhan, late last month.

The previous record for annual CPI rise was 8.3 percent in 1996.

China´s producer price index (PPI) rose 4.6 percent year-on-year in November, the largest monthly increase in more than two years, the bureau said Monday.

The sharp PPI rise last month fuelled concern over further inflation caused by rising production costs.

The rising CPI figures in recent months have been running contrary to earlier predictions that China´s CPI would fall steadily later this year.

Source: Xinhua