BEIJING, March 10 (Reuters) - China's consumer prices fell 1.6 percent in the year to February, dipping into deflation for the first time December 2002, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday.
Economists had expected a 1.6 percent decline, in large part because of the high base of comparison: in February 2008, consumer prices were up 8.7 percent on the year. [ID:nPEK191392]
Between January and February, prices were flat, the statistics office said. The figures are not seasonally adjusted.
In January, the consumer price index had been up 1.0 percent from a year earlier.
Food prices, which make up a third of the consumer basket, fell 1.9 percent in February from a year earlier. Non-food prices were down 1.2 percent.
China's producer prices fell 4.5 percent in the year to February, the rate of decline accelerating from the 3.3 percent drop in the 12 months to January, the agency said.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected the producer price index to fall 4.2 percent.
The NBS issued no statement to explain the figures.
CONSUMER PRICE INDEX __2009__ _____________________2008_______________________ Feb Jan Dec Nov Oct Sep Aug Jul Jun May Apr Mar -1.6 1.0 1.2 2.4 4.0 4.6 4.9 6.3 7.1 7.7 8.5 8.3
PRODUCER PRICE INDEX __2009__ _____________________2008_______________________ Feb Jan Dec Nov Oct Sep Aug Jul Jun May Apr Mar -4.5 -3.3 -1.1 2.0 6.6 9.1 10.1 10.0 8.8 8.2 8.1 8.0 (Reporting by Zhou Xin and Langi Jiang; Editing by Alan Wheatley and Ken Wills)