The growth rate also witnessed a decline of 1.3 percentage points from that for the whole year of 2006, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Influenced by the milder price hikes, the ex-factory prices of China's industrial products climbed only by 3.3 percent in January, about 0.2 percentage point higher than December and 0.3 percentage point more over the whole year of 2006.

In a breakdown, the ex-factory prices for production materials climbed by 3.8 percent year-on-year while those for consumer goods up by 1.8 percent.

The ex-factory prices for major industrial product crude oil surged 4.6 percent, with that for diesel oil up by 14.5 percent, beating the hikes of 13.6 percent and 11.1 percent for kerosene and gasoline respectively.

Raw coal, another popular industrial product in China, saw its ex-factory prices rise by 1.7 percent while the price hikes for average steel grew by 2.2 percent.

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