China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 1.7 percent year on year in September, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Thursday.

The growth eased from the 2.4-percent rise registered in August.

The CPI edged up 0.2 percent month on month in September, compared with an increase of 0.4 percent in August.

Dong Lijuan, a senior statistician with the NBS, attributed the easing CPI growth to moderating food prices, especially vegetables and pork.

Food prices, which account for nearly one-third of the weighting in the country's CPI, climbed 0.4 percent month on month in September, with the pace of growth decelerating from 1.4 percent in the previous month.

In the first nine months, China's CPI rose 3.3 percent from a year earlier.

According to the latest data, the country's producer price index, which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, fell 2.1 percent year on year in September.