The consumer price index (CPI) - a key gauge of inflation - rose to 8.7 percent in February, the highest since June 1996, adding pressure on policymakers battling to curb inflation.

It was a sharp 1.6 percentage point gain from January, Xie Fuzhan, head of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), told reporters yesterday.

Severe snowstorms which hit parts of central and southern China in January and February disrupted transportation and food supplies, especially vegetables, whose prices surged by 46 percent year-on-year in February compared with 13.7 percent in January.