BEIJING -- 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.