CHINA'S consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 4.9 percent year on year in February 2011, the National Bureau of Statistics announced today.

The increase was the same as January.

China's January inflation remained stubbornly high at 4.9 percent despite a series of measures taken to curb price rises. The growth accelerated from 4.6 percent in December but was lower than the 28-month high of 5.1 percent in November.

The bureau's spokesman Sheng Laiyun said the prices of food, which account for nearly a third of the basket of goods in the nation's CPI calculation, surged 11 percent year on year in February. Non-food prices rose 2.3 percent from a year earlier.

China has adjusted the weight of items for its CPI calculation as from this year. Under the new calculation measures, food weighting in CPI basket is down 2.21 percentage points, while property-related weighting is raised by 4.22 percentage points.

Consumer prices rose 4.8 percent in urban areas and 5.5 percent in the rural region, compared with a year earlier, said Sheng.