Factory-gate price inflation in China rose to the highest level on record in September, data released on Thursday showed. The producer price index (PPI), which reflects the prices factories charge wholesalers for their products, rose by 10.7 per cent in September from a year earlier, from a gain of 9.5 per cent in August, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said. This was above expectations of analysts in a Bloomberg survey, who had predicted a rise to 10.5 per cent. It is the highest reading since the start of the NBS database in October 1996 after the index hit 10.0 in August 2008 and 10.1 the following month. (full story)