Prices for goods at the factory gate in China beat expectations in January, officials said Tuesday, rising for a fifth straight month in a positive sign of strengthening demand as the world's second-largest economy stabilises.

The producer price index (PPI) rose 6.9 percent year-on-year in the month, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, outstripping an economist estimate of a 6.5 percent increase in a Bloomberg News survey.

The consumer price index (CPI) also rose 2.5 percent in the month, the data showed, beating a Bloomberg analysis that forecast a 2.4 percent increase.