People buy pork in an open fair in Qionghai, South China's Hainan Province on Saturday. Photo: VCG

China's consumer inflation hit the highest level in more than seven years in October amid skyrocketing pork prices, official data showed over the weekend.

The consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 3.8 percent year-on-year in October, the highest level in 93 months, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said. The index edged up 0.9 percent on a monthly basis.

The main factor behind the rise was a substantial increase in pork prices, and there is no risk of rising inflation across the board, Bank of Communications economists led by Lian Ping said in a research note sent to the Global Times.

The economists forecast the CPI to remain at elevated levels until the first quarter of 2020 and possibly top 4 percent year-on-year in some months.

Pork prices were up 101.3 percent year-on-year last month, pushing up consumer inflation by 2.43 percentage points. Livestock meat prices as a whole surged 66.8 percent year-on-year, contributing 2.92 percentage points to the October CPI rise.

Pork price-fueled consumer inflation accounted for nearly two-thirds of October's CPI growth year-on-year, Shen Yun, a senior statistician at the NBS, said in a statement posted on the bureau's website on Saturday. As measured monthly, the rise was more striking: pork prices soared 20.1 percent in October over September, contributing nearly 90 percent of the index's gain, Shen said.

The producer price index went up 0.1 percent in October from September, but on a yearly basis, producer inflation contracted 1.6 percent last month.

Owing to weak domestic and foreign demand, producer inflation lacks upward momentum and will continue to decline, pointing to interim deflationary risks in the factory sector, the Bank of Communications economist said.

The rise in the CPI will complicate the Chinese central bank's monetary policy-making as any fresh cuts in benchmark interest rates to fire up the slowing economy will be more difficult. Meanwhile, the sagging PPI reading makes a case for pro-growth moves, market watchers said.

The People's Bank of China (PBC), the central bank, on Tuesday, lowered the interest rate on its one-year medium-term lending facility loans by 5 basis points to 3.25 percent.

The move, the first since 2016, is believed to pave the way for a cut in the new benchmark Loan Prime Rate, which is announced on the 20th of every month.