China's consumer price index (CPI), one of the main measures of inflation, eased to a 33-month low of 1.7 percent in October, official data showed on Friday.

The CPI dropped from 1.9 percent in September and 2 percent in August, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Friday.

Reduced growth in food prices was the major reason for the CPI's continued easing, Zhao Ping, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the Global Times Friday.

China's producer price index (PPI), which measures inflation at the wholesale level, dropped by 2.8 percent year-on-year in October, said the NBS.

"This means inflation is not the government's main concern in the short run, and indicates a declining demand in China at the moment," Tian Yun, vice president of the Beijing-based China Macro Economics Institute, told the Global Times Friday.

Also on Friday, Commerce Minister Chen Deming said on the sidelines of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) that the country's exports had grown 11 percent year-on-year in October but that it would be difficult to break through the 10 percent export annual growth barrier this year, Reuters reported.

General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Hu Jintao called for reforms to boost domestic demand and transform the country's growth model in a keynote report to the Party congress Thursday.

Industrial transformation and upgrading are important for China, but it will take time to see such goals fully implemented, said Tian. He added that what is needed now is for policies to be fine-tuned to help the real economy pull through these tough times.

Ma Jiantang, head of the NBS, said Friday that the economic data for October had boosted the central government's confidence in achieving an annual GDP growth rate of 7.5 percent in 2012.