(Yicai Global) Feb. 15 -- China's inflation for January came in below market expectations, with factory price gains slowing for a seventh month in a row to the lowest point in 28 months.

The consumer price index rose 1.7 percent last month from a year earlier, while the producer price index, a gauge of industrial profitability, edged just 0.1 percent higher, data the National Bureau of Statistics released today show.

The average forecast for consumer prices was for a 1.9 percent increase, the same as in December, according to the results of a survey of 22 chief economists at major domestic financial institutions conducted by Yicai Research Institute. They projected an average 0.38 percent gain in producer prices.

On a monthly basis, January's CPI increased 0.5 percent from the previous month in a rise from December's 0.3 percent decrease, when the PPI was down 0.6 percent from the previous month, which is also an improvement on December's 1 percent decrease.

Editor: Ben Armour